LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class  • 


GLIMPSE    OUTSIDE    OF    MODERN    HOME 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS 


AND    OTHERS 


W.     D.     HOWELLS 


ILLUSTRATED 


HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

1908 


;•    , 


BOOKS  OF  TRAVEL  AND  COMMENT  BY 
WILLIAM   DEAN    HOWELLS 

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Copyright,  1908,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

Copyright,  1908,  by 
THE  SUN  PRINTING  AND  PUBLISHING  ASSOCIATION. 

All  rights  reserved. 
Published  October,  1908. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  UP  AND  DOWN  MADEIRA 1 

II.  Two  UP-TOWN  BLOCKS  INTO  SPAIN 14 

III.  ASHORE  AT  GENOA 25 

IV.  NAPLES  AND  HER  JOYFUL  NOISE 37 

V.  POMPEII  REVISITED 55 

VI.  ROMAN  HOLIDAYS 68 

VII.  A  WEEK  AT  LEGHORN 239 

VIII.  OVER  AT  PISA 259 

IX.  BACK  AT  GENOA 272 

X.  EDEN  AFTER  THE  FALL 284 


208349 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


GLIMPSE    OUTSIDE   OP   MODERN   ROME Frontitpitet 

FUNCHAL    BAY Facing  p.  6 

BOATS    AND   DIVING   BOYS,    PUNCH AL "  12 

GIBRALTAR  FROM  THE  BAY "  14 

GIBRALTAR  FROM  THE  NEUTRAL  GROUND "  20 

"DAUGHTERS  OP  CLIMATE  ALONG  THE  RIVIERA"  ...  "  26 

TYPICAL  MONUMENT  IN  THE  CAMPO  SANTO "  34 

THE  CASTEL  DELL*  OVO,  NAPLES "  38 

OUT-DOOR  LIFE  IN  OLD  NAPLES       "  42 

UP-STAIRS  STREET  IN  OLD  NAPLES "  48 

NAPLES  AND  THE  CASTEL  ST.  ELMO  FROM  THE  MOLE     .  "  50 

EXCAVATING  AT  POMPEII "  58 

THE    STREET   OP   TOMBS,    POMPEII "  60 

THE    CAPUCHIN    CHURCH,    ROME "  76 

GLIMPSE    INSIDE    OF    IMPERIAL    ROME "  86 

INTERIOR    OP    COLOSSEUM    FROM   THE    SOUTH "  90 

THE    SACRED    WAY    THROUGH    THE    FORUM "  92 

THE    ROMAN   FORUM "  96 

THE    SPANISH    STEPS "  106 

TOWARD  THE  PINCIAN  HILL "  108 

SEPULCHRE  OP  ROMULUS,  FORUM "  110 

TRAJAN'S  FORUM  AND  COLUMN "  112 

THE  ROSTRA  IN  THE  FORUM "  118 

THE  MOSAICS  UNDER  THE  CAPUCHIN  CHURCH   ....  "  126 

SANTA  MARIA  SOPRA  MINERVA "  132 

CHURCH  OF  ARA  CCELI "  134 

CHURCH  OF  SANTA  MAGGIORE "  138 

MICHELANGELO'S  "MOSES"  IN  SAN  PIETRO  INVINCOLI  .  "  140 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"THE  LITTLE  STADIUM  WITH  ITS  GRADINES"   .     .     .     .  Facing j,.  144 

CASINO    OF   THE    VILLA   DORIA   AND   GARDENS        ....  "  148 

THE    CARNIVAL    (AS    IT   ONCE   WAS) "  166 

THE    FOUNTAIN    OF   TREVI "  174 

COLONNADE    AND    FOUNTAIN   AT   ST.    PETER'S         ....  "  176 

8ISTINE    CHAPEL,   VATICAN    PALACE "  182 

PIAZZA    DEL   POPOLO    FROM   THE    PINCIAN    HILL     ....  "  186 

THE    BATHS   OF   DIOCLETIAN "  198 

CHURCH    OF   ST.    JOHN    LATERAN   AND    LATERAN    PALACE    .  "  204 

STAIRWAY   AND    FOUNTAIN,    VILLA   D'ESTE "  210 

VILLA   FALCONIERI,    ENTRANCE,    FRASCATI "  218 

IN   THE    GARDENS    OF   THE    VILLA   FALCONIERI      ....  "  222 

THE    MARBLE    FAUN "  226 

"MARCUS  AURELIUS  WITH  OUT-STRETCHED  ARM"  .     .     .  "  228 

IN  THE  VILLA  MEDICI "  232 

THE  BATHS  OF  CARACALLA "  236 

PIAZZA  VICTOR  EMANUEL,  LEGHORN "  246 

THE  CANAL  AT  LEGHORN "  252 

THE   CATHEDRAL,  BAPTISTERY,  AND   LEANING  TOWER,  PISA  "  260 

PISA,    "WITH    ALMOST    ANY    OF   MY    BACKGROUNDS5'       .       .  "  268 

WASHING    IN    THE    RIVER,    GENOA "  276 

REALISTIC    GROUP    IN   THE    CAMPO   SANTO "  278 

MONACO "  288 

THE    CASINO,    MONTE    CARLO "  300 


Many  of  tlie  illustrations  are  from  stereographs 
copyrighted  by  the  H.  C.  White  Company,  New  York 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEES 


Of   TH£ 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND    OTHERS 

I 

UP   AND    DOWN   MADEIRA 

No  drop-curtain,  at  any  theatre  I  have  seen,  was 
ever  so  richly  imagined,  with  misty  tops  and  shadowy 
clefts  and  frowning  cliffs  and  gloomy  valleys  and  long, 
plunging  cataracts,  as  the  actual  landscape  of  Madeira, 
when  we  drew  nearer  and  nearer  to  it,  at  the  close  of 
a  tearful  afternoon  of  mid-January.  The  scenery  of 
drop-curtains  is  often  very  boldly  beautiful,  but  here 
Nature,  if  she  had  taken  a  hint  from  art,  had  certainly 
bettered  her  instruction.  During  the  waits  between 
acts  at  the  theatre,  while  studying  the  magnificent 
painting  beyond  the  trouble  of  the  orchestra,  I  have 
been  most  impressed  by  the  splendid  variety  which  the 
artist  had  got  into  his  picture,  where  the  spacious  frame 
lent  itself  to  his  passion  for  saying  everything;  but 
I  remembered  his  thronging  fancies  as  meagre  and 
scanty  in  the  presence  of  the  stupendous  reality  before 
me.  I  have,  for  instance,  not  even  mentioned  the  sea, 
which  swept  smoother  and  smoother  in  toward  the 
feet  of  those  precipices  and  grew  more  and  more  trans- 
lucently  purple  and  yellow  and  green,  while  half  a 

score  of  cascades  shot  straight  down  their  fronts  in 

1 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

shafts  of  snowy  foam,  and  over  their  pachydermatous 
shoulders  streamed  and  hung  long  reaches  of  gray 
vines  or  mosses.  To  the  view  from  the  sea  the  island 
is  all,  with  its  changing  capes  and  promontories  and 
hays  and  inlets,  one  immeasurable  mountain;  and  on 
the  afternoon  of  our  approach  it  was  hestridden  hy  a 
steadfast  rainbow,  of  which  we  could  only  see  one  leg 
indeed,  hut  that  very  stout  and  athletic. 

There  were  breadths  of  dark  woodland  aloft  on  this 
mountain,  and  terraced  vineyards  lower  down;  and  on 
the  shelving  plateaus  yet  farther  from  the  heights  that 
lost  themselves  in  the  clouds  there  were  scattered  white 
cottages ;  on  little  levels  close  to  the  sea  there  were  set 
white  villas.  These,  as  the  ship  coquetted  with  the  va 
garies  of  the  shore,  thickened  more  and  more,  until 
after  rounding  a  prodigious  headland  we  found  our 
selves  in  face  of  the  charming  little  city  of  Funchal: 
long  horizontal  lines  of  red  roofs,  ivory  and  pink  and 
salmon  walls,  evenly  fenestrated,  with  an  ancient  for 
tress  giving  the  modern  look  of  things  a  proper  medi 
aeval  touch.  Large  hotels,  with  the  air  of  palaces, 
crowned  the  upland  vantages;  there  were  bell-towers 
of  churches,  and  in  one  place  there  was  a  wide  splotch 
of  vivid  color  from  the  red  of  the  densely  flowering 
creeper  on  the  side  of  some  favored  house.  There 
was  an  acceptable  expanse  of  warm  brown  near  the 
quay  from  the  withered  but  unfailing  leaves  of  a 
sycamore-shaded  promenade,  and  in  the  fine  roadstead 
where  we  anchored  there  lay  other  steamers  and  a 
lead-colored  Portuguese  war-ship.  I  am  not  a  paint 
er,  but  I  think  that  here  are  the  materials  of  a  water- 
color  which  almost  any  one  else  could  paint.  In  the 
hands  of  a  scene-painter  they  would  yield  a  really 
unrivalled  drop-curtain.  I  stick  to  the  notion  of  this 
because  when  the  beautiful  goes  too  far,  as  it  certainly 

2 


UP    AND    DOWN    MADEIRA 

does  at  Madeira,  it  leaves  you  not  only  sated  but  vin 
dictive  ;  you  wish  to  mock  it. 

The  afternoon  saddened  more  and  more,  and  one 
could  not  take  an  interest  in  the  islanders  who  came  out 
in  little  cockles  and  proposed  to  dive  for  shillings  and 
sixpences,  though  quarters  and  dimes  would  do.  The 
company's  tender  also  came  out,  and  numbers  of  pas 
sengers  went  ashore  in  the  mere  wantonness  of  paying 
for  their  dinner  and  a  night's  lodging  in  the  annexes 
of  the  hotels,  which  they  were  told  beforehand  were 
full.  The  lights  began  to  tAvinkle  from  the  windows 
of  the  town,  and  the  dark  fell  upon  the  insupportable 
picturesqueness  of  the  prospect,  leaving  one  to  a  gay- 
ety  of  trooping  and  climbing  lamps  which  defined  the 
course  of  the  streets. 

The  morning  broke  in  sunshine,  and  after  early 
breakfast  the  launches  began  to  ply  again  between  the 
ship  and  the  shore  and  continued  till  nearly  all  the  first 
and  second  cabin  people  had  been  carried  off.  The  peo 
ple  of  the  steerage  satisfied  what  longing  they  had  for 
strange  sights  and  scenes  by  thronging  to  the  sides  of 
the  steamer  until  they  gave  her  a  strong  list  landward, 
as  they  easily  might,  for  there  were  twenty-five  hundred 
of  them.  At  Madeira  there  is  a  local  Thomas  Cook  & 
Son  of  quite  another  name,  but  we  were  not  finally 
sure  that  the  alert  youth  on  the  pier  who  sold  us 
transportation  and  provision  was  really  their  agent. 
However,  his  tickets  served  perfectly  well  at  all  points, 
and  he  was  of  such  an  engaging  civility  and  personal 
comeliness  that  I  should  not  have  much  minded  their 
failing  us  here  and  there.  He  gave  the  first  charming 
touch  of  the  Latin  south  whose  renewed  contact  is  such 
a  pleasure  to  any  one  knowing  it  from  the  past.  All 
Portuguese  as  Funchal  was,  it  looked  so  like  a  hun 
dred  little  Italian  towns  that  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  I 

3 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

must  always  have  driven  about  them  in  calico-tented 
bullock-carts  set  on  runners,  as  later  I  drove  about 
Funchal. 

It  was  warm  enough  on  the  ship,  but  here  in  the 
town  we  found  ourselves  in  weather  that  one  could 
easily  have  taken  for  summer,  if  the  inhabitants  had 
not  repeatedly  assured  us  that  it  was  the  season  of 
winter,  and  that  there  were  no  flowers  and  no  fruits. 
They  could  not,  if  they  had  wished,  have  denied  the 
flies;  these,  in  a  hotel  interior  to  which  we  penetrated, 
simply  swarmed.  If  it  was  winter  in  Funchal  it  was  no 
wintrier  than  early  autumn  would  have  been  in  one 
of  those  Italian  towns  of  other  days;  it  had  the  same 
temperament,  the  same  little  tree-planted  spaces,  the 
same  devious,  cobble-paved  streets,  the  same  pleasant 
stucco  houses;  the  churches  had  bells  of  like  tone,  and 
if  their  fagades  confessed  a  Spanish  touch  they  were 
not  more  Spanish  than  half  the  churches  in  Naples. 
The  public  ways  were  of  a  scrupulous  cleanliness,  as 
if,  with  so  many  English  signs  glaring  down  at  them, 
they  durst  not  untidy  out-of-doors,  though  in-doors  it 
was  said  to  be  different  with  them.  There  are  three 
thousand  English  living  at  Funchal  and  everybody 
speaks  English,  however  slightly.  The  fresh  faces  of 
English  girls  met  us  in  the  streets  and  no  doubt  English 
invalids  abound. 

We  shipmates  were  all  going  to  the  station  of  the 
funicular  railway,  but  our  tickets  did  not  call  for  bul 
lock-sleds  and  so  we  took  a  clattering  little  horse-car, 
which  climbed  with  us  through  up-hill  streets  and  got 
us  to  the  station  too  soon.  Within  the  closed  grille 
there  the  handsomest  of  swarthy,  black-eyed,  black- 
mustached  station-masters  (if  such  was  his  quality) 
told  us  that  we  could  not  have  a  train  at  once,  though 
we  had  been  advised  that  any  ten  of  us  could  any  time 


UP    AND    DOWN    MADEIKA 

have  a  train,  because  the  cars  had  all  gone  up  the 
mountain  and  none  would  be  down  for  twenty  minutes. 
He  spoke  English  and  he  mitigated  by  a  most  amiable 
personality  sufferings  which  were  perhaps  not  so  great 
as  we  would  have  liked  to  think.  Some  of  us  wandered 
off  down  a  pink-and-cream  colored  avenue  near  by  and 
admired  so  much  the  curtains  of  red-and-yellow  flow 
ers — a  cross  between  honeysuckles  and  trumpet  blos 
soms — overhanging  a  garden-wall  that  two  friendly 
boys  began  to  share  our  interest  in  them.  One  of 
them  mounted  the  other  and  tore  down  handfuls  of 
the  flowers,  which  they  bestowed  upon  us  with  so  little 
apparent  expectation  of  reward  that  we  promptly  gave 
them  of  the  international  copper  coinage  current  in 
Madeira,  and  went  back  to  the  station  doubtless  feeling 
guiltier  than  they.  Had  we  not  been  accessory  after  the 
fact  to  something  like  theft  and,  as  it  was  Sunday,  to 
Sabbath-breaking  besides  ?  Afterward  flowers  proved 
so  abundant  in  Madeira  in  spite  of  its  being  winter, 
that  we  could  not  feel  the  larceny  a  serious  one,  and  the 
Sunday  was  a  Latin  Sabbath  well  used  to  being  broken. 
The  pony  engine  which  was  to  push  our  slanting  car 
over  the  cogged  track  up  the  mountain  arrived  with 
due  ceremony  of  bell  and  whistle,  and  we  were  let 
through  the  grille  by  the  station-master  as  politely  as 
if  we  had  been  each  his  considered  guest.  Then  the 
climb  began  through  the  fields  of  sugar-cane,  terraced 
vineyards,  orchards  of  fruit  trees,  and  gardens  of  veg 
etables  planted  under  the  arbors  over  which  the  grapes 
were  trained.  One  of  us  told  the  others  that  the  vege 
tables  were  sheltered  to  save  them  from  being  scorched 
by  the  summer  sun,  and  that  much  of  the  work  among 
them  was  done  by  moonlight  to  save  the  laborers  from 
the  same  fate.  I  do  not  know  how  he  had  amassed 

this  knowledge,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  I  have  the  right 

5 


EOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEKS 

to  impart  it  without  his  leave.  I  myself  saw  some  mel 
ons  lolling  on  one  of  the  tiled  roofs  of  the  cottages 
where  they  had  perhaps  been  pushed  by  the  energetic 
forces  of  the  earth  and  sky.  The  grape-vines  were 
quiescent,  partly  because  it  was  winter,  as  everybody 
said,  and  partly  because  the  wine  culture  is  no  longer 
so  profitable  in  the  island.  It  has  been  found  for  the 
moment  that  Madeira  is  bad  for  the  gout,  and  this  dis 
covery  of  the  doctors  is  bad  for  the  peasants  (already 
cruelly  overtaxed  by  Portugal),  who  are  leaving  their 
homes  in  great  numbers  and  seeking  their  fortunes 
in  both  of  the  Americas,  as  well  as  the  islands  of  all 
the  seas.  It  must  be  a  heartbreak  for  them  to  forsake 
such  homes  as  we  saw  in  the  clean  white  cottages, 
with  the  balconies  and  terraces. 

But  there  were  no  signs  of  depopulation  either  of  old 
or  young.  Smiling  mothers  and  fathers  of  all  ages, 
in  their  Sunday  leisure  and  their  Sunday  best,  watched 
our  ascent  as  if  they  had  never  seen  the  like  before, 
and  our  course  was  never  so  swift  but  we  could  be 
easily  overtaken  by  the  Children;  they  embarrassed  us 
with  the  riches  of  the  camellias  which  they  flung  in  upon 
us,  and  they  were  accompanied  by  small  dogs  which 
barked  excitedly.  Our  train  almost  grazed  the  walls 
of  the  door-yards  as  we  passed  through  the  succession 
of  the  one-  and  two-story  cottages,  which  dotted  the 
mountain-side  in  every  direction.  When  the  eye  could 
leave  them  it  was  lured  from  height  to  height,  and  at 
each  rise  of  the  track  to  some  wider  and  lovelier  ex 
panse  of  the  sea.  We  could  see  merely  our  own  steam 
er  in  the  roadstead,  with  the  Portuguese  war-ship,  and 
the  few  other  vessels  at  anchor,  but  we  could  never  ex 
haust  the  variety  of  those  varied  mountain  slopes  and 
tops.  Their  picturesqueness  of  form  and  their  de 
light  of  color  would  beggar  any  thesaurus  of  its  de- 


UP    AND    DOWN    MADEIRA 

scriptive  reserves,  and  yet  leave  their  beauty  almost 
unhinted.  A  drop-curtain  were  here  a  vain  simile; 
the  chromatic  glories  of  colored  postal-cards  might  sug 
gest  the  scene,  but  then  again  they  might  overdo  it. 
Nature  is  modest  in  her  most  magnificent  moods,  and 
I  do  not  see  how  she  could  have  a  more  magnificent 
mood  than  Madeira.  It  can  never  be  represented  by 
my  art,  but  it  may  be  measurably  stated :  low  lying  sea ; 
the  town  scattering  and  fraying  everywhere  into  out 
lying  hamlets,  villas  and  cottages;  steep  rising  upon 
steep,  till  they  reach  uninhabitable  climaxes  where 
the  woods  darken  upward  into  the  everlasting  snows, 
in  one  whole  of  grandeur  resuming  in  its  unity  every 
varying  detail. 

I  dwell  rather  helplessly  upon  the  scenery,  because 
it  was  what  we  professedly  went  up  or  half  up,  or 
one-tenth  or  -hundredth  up,  the  mountain  for.  Un- 
professedly  we  went  up  in  order  to  come  down  by  the 
toboggan  of  the  country,  though  we  vowed  one  another 
not  to  attempt  anything  so  mad.  In  the  meanwhile, 
before  it  should  be  time  for  lunch,  we  could  walk  up 
to  a  small  church  near  the  station  and  see  the  people 
at  prayer  in  an  interior  which  did  not  differ  in  bareness 
and  tawdriness  from  most  other  country  churches  of 
the  Latin  south,  though  it  had  a  facade  so  satisfy- 
ingly  Spanish,  because  I  suppose  it  was  so  perfectly 
Portuguese,  that  heart  could  ask  no  more.  Not  all 
the  people  were  at  prayer  within;  irregular  files  of 
them  attended  our  progress  to  give  us  the  opportunity 
of  doing  charity.  The  beggars  were  of  every  sort, 
sex,  and  age,  and  some,  from  the  hands  they  held  out, 
with  fingers  reduced  to  their  last  joints,  looked  as  if 
they  might  be  lepers,  but  I  do  not  say  they  were. 
What  I  am  sure  of  is  that  the  faces  of  the  worshippers 
— men,  women,  and  children — when  they  came  out  of 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

the  church  were  of  a  gentleness  which,  if  it  was  not 
innocence  and  goodness,  might  well  have  passed  for 
those  virtues.  They  had  kind  eyes,  which  seemed  as 
often  blue  as  black,  and  if  they  had  no  great  beauty 
they  were  seldom  quite  ugly.  I  wish  I  could  think 
we  strangers,  as  they  gazed  curiously,  timorously  at 
us,  struck  them  as  favorably. 

An  involuntary  ferocity  from  the  famine  which  we 
began  to  feel  may  have  glared  from  our  visages,  for 
we  had  eaten  nothing  for  three  hours,  which  was  long 
for  saloon  passengers.  At  the  first  restaurant  which 
we  found,  and  in  which  we  all  but  sat  down  at  table, 
our  coupons  were  not  good,  but  this  was  not  wholly 
loss,  for  we  recouped  ourselves  in  the  beauties  of  the 
walk  on  which  we  wandered  along  the  mountain-side 
to  the  right  of  the  restaurant.  At  the  point  where  we 
were  no  longer  confident  of  our  way  an  opportune 
native  appeared  and  led  us  over  paths  paved  with  fine 
pebbles,  sometimes  wrought  into  geometric  patterns, 
and  always  through  pleasing  sun  and  shade,  till  we 
reached  a  pretty  hotel  set,  with  its  gardens  before  it, 
on  a  shelf  of  level  land  and  commanding  a  view  of 
our  steamer  and  the  surrounding  sea.  Tropic  growths, 
which  I  will  venture  to  call  myrtle,  oleander,  laurel, 
and  eucalyptus,  environed  the  hotel,  not  too  closely 
nor  densely,  and  our  increasing  party  was  presently 
discovered  from  the  head  of  its  steps  by  a  hospitable 
matron,  who  with  a  cry  of  comprehensive  welcome  ran 
within  and  was  replaced  by  a  head-waiter  of  as  friend 
ly  aspect  and  much  more  English.  He  said  our  cou 
pons  were  good  there  and  that  our  luncheon  would  be 
ready  in  two  minutes;  for  proof  of  the  despatch  with 
which  we  should  be  served  he  held  up  the  first  and 
second  fingers  of  his  right  hand.  Restored  by  his  as 
surance,  we  did  not  really  mind  waiting  twice  the  tale 

8 


UP    AND    DOWN    MADEIRA 

of  all  his  ten  fingers,  and  we  spent  our  time  variously 
in  wandering  about  the  plateau,  among  the  wonted 
iron  tables  and  chairs  in  front  of  the  hotel,  in  being 
photographed  in  a  fairy  grotto  behind  it,  and  in  exam 
ining  the  visitors'  book  in  the  parlor.  The  names  of 
visitors  from  South  Africa  largely  prevailed,  for  the 
Cape  Town  steamers,  oftener  than  any  others,  touch 
at  Madeira,  but  there  was  one  traveller  of  Portuguese 
race  who  had  written  his  name  in  bold  characters  above 
the  cry,  "  Long  live  the  Portuguese  Kepublic."  Soon 
after  the  Portuguese  monarchy  ceased  to  live  for  a 
time  in  the  person  of  the  murdered  king  and  his  heir, 
but  it  is  doubtful  if  the  health  of  the  potential  republic 
was  as  great  as  before. 

That  bright  Sunday  morning  no  shadow  of  the  black 
event  was  forecast,  and  we  gave  our  unstinted  sym 
pathy  to  our  unknown  co-republican.  The  luncheon, 
when  we  were  called  to  it,  had  merits  of  novelty  and 
quality  which  I  will  celebrate  only  as  regards  the  deli 
cate  fish  fresh  from  the  sea,  and  the  pease  fresh 
from  the  garden,  with  poached  eggs  fresh  from  the 
coop  dropped  upon  them.  The  conception  of  chops 
which  followed  was  not  so  faultless,  though  the  fruit 
with  which  we  ended  did  much  to  repair  any  error  of 
kid  which  may  have  mistaken  itself  for  lamb.  Per 
haps  our  enthusiasm  was  heightened  by  the  fine  air 
which  had  sharpened  our  appetites.  At  any  rate,  it 
all  ended  in  an  habitual  transaction  in  real  estate  by 
which  I  became  the  owner  of  the  place,  without  ex 
propriating  the  actual  possessor,  and  established  there 
those  castles  in  Spain  belonging  to  me  in  so  many  parts 
of  the  world. 

There  remained  now  nothing  for  us  to  do  but  to 
toboggan  down  the  mountain,  and  we  overcame  our 
resolution  not  to  do  so  far  enough  to  go  and  look  at 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

the  toboggans  under  the  guidance  of  our  head-waiter. 
When  once  we  had  looked  we  were  lost.  The  tobog 
gans  were  flat  baskets  set  on  iron-shod  runners,  and 
well  cushioned  and  padded ;  they  held  one,  two,  or  three 
passengers;  the  track  on  which  they  descended  was 
paved,  in  gentle  undulations,  with  thin  pebbles  set  on 
edge  and  greased  wherever  the  descent  found  a  level. 
A  smiling  native,  with  a  strong  rope  attached  to  the 
toboggan,  stood  on  each  side  of  it,  and  held  it  back 
or  pulled  it  forward,  according  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
case.  It  is  long  since  I  slid  down  hill  on  a  sled  of  my 
own,  and  I  do  not  pretend  to  recall  the  sensation;  but 
I  can  remember  nothing  so  luxurious  in  transporta 
tion  as  the  swift  flight  of  the  Madeira  toboggan,  which 
you  temper  at  will  through  its  guides  and  guards,  but 
do  not  wish  to  temper  at  all  when  your  first  alarm, 
mainly  theoretical,  passes  into  the  gayety  ending  in 
exultant  rejoicing  at  the  bottom  of  the  course. 

Our  two  toboggan  men  were  possibly  vigilant  and 
reassuring  beyond  the  'common,  but  one  was  quite 
silently  so;  the  other,  who  spoke  a  little  English,  en 
couraged  us  from  time  to  time  to  believe  that  they 
were  "  strong  mans,"  afterward  correcting  himself  in 
conformity  to  the  rules  of  Portuguese  grammar,  which 
make  the  adjective  agree  in  number  with  the  noun, 
and  declaring  that  they  were  "  strongs  mans."  We  met 
many  toboggan  men  who  needed  to  be  "  strongs  mans  " 
in  their  ascent  of  our  track,  with  their  heavy  tobog 
gans  on  their  heads;  but  some  of  them  did  not  look 
strong,  and  our  own  arrived  spent  and  panting  at  the 
bottom.  Something  like  that  is  what  always  spoils 
pleasure  in  this  world.  Even  when  you  have  paid  for 
it  with  your  money,  some  one  else  has  paid  with  his 
person  twice  as  much,  and  you  have  not  equalled  his 
outlay  when  you  have  tipped  him  your  handsomest. 

10 


UP    AND    DOWN    MADEIRA 

A.  shilling  apiece  seemed  handsome  for  those  "  strongs 
mans,"  but  afterward  there  were  watches  of  the  nights 
when  the  spirit  grieved  that  the  shilling  had  not  been 
made  two  apiece  or  even  half  a  crown,  and  I  wish  now 
that  the  first  reader  of  mine  who  toboggans  down  Ma 
deira  would  make  up  the  difference  for  me  in  his  tip 
to  those  poor  fellows.  I  do  not  mind  if  he  adds  a  few 
pennies  for  the  children  who  ran  before  our  toboggan 
and  tossed  camellias  into  it,  and  then  followed  in  the 
hopes  of  a  reward,  which  we  tried  not  to  disappoint. 

The  future  traveller  need  not  add  to  the  fee  of  the 
authorized  and  numbered  guide  who  took  possession 
of  us  as  soon  as  we  got  out  of  our  basket  and  led  us 
unresisting  to  a  waiting  bullock  sled.  He  invited  him 
self  into  it,  and  gave  himself  the  best  of  characters 
in  the  autobiography  into  which  he  wove  his  scanty  in 
struction  concerning  the  objects  we  passed.  A  bullock 
sled  is  not  of  such  blithe  progress  as  a  toboggan,  but  it 
is  very  comfortable,  and  it  is  of  an  Oriental  and  litter- 
like  dignity,  with  its  calico  cushions  and  curtains.  One 
could  not  well  use  it  in  ISTew  York,  but  it  serves  every 
purpose  of  a  cab  in  Funchal,  where  we  noted  a  peculiar 
feature  of  local  commerce  which  I  hesitate  to  specify, 
since  it  cast  apparent  discredit  upon  woman.  It  was, 
as  I  have  noted,  Sunday ;  but  every  shop  where  things 
pleasing  or  even  useful  to  women  were  sold  was  wide 
open,  and  somewhat  flaringly  invited  the  custom  of 
our  fellow-passengers  of  that  sex;  but  there  was  not 
a  shop  where  such  things  as  men's  collars  were  for  sale, 
or  anything  pleasing  or  useful  to  man,  but  was  closed 
and  locked  fast.  I  must  except  from  this  sweeping 
statement  the  cafes,  but  these  should  not  count,  for 
women  as  well  as  men  frequented  them,  as  we  ascer 
tained  by  going  to  a  very  bowery  one  on  the  quay  and 

ordering  a  bottle  of  the  best  and  dryest  Madeira.     We 

11 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

wished  perhaps  to  prove  that  it  was  really  not  bad 
for  gout,  or  perhaps  that  it  was  no  better  than  the 
Madeira  you  get  in  New  York  for  the  same  price. 
Even  with  the  help  of  friends,  of  the  sex  which  could 
have  been  freely  buying  native  laces,  hats,  fans,  photo 
graphs,  parasols,  and  tailor-made  dresses,  we  could  not 
finish  that  bottle.  Glass  after  glass  we  bestowed  on 
our  smiling  guide,  with  no  final  effect  upon  the  bottle 
and  none  upon  him,  except  to  make  him  follow  us  to 
the  tender  and  take  an  after-fee  for  showing  us  a  way 
which  we  could  not  have  missed  blindfold.  It  was 
rather  strange,  but  not  stranger  than  the  behavior  of 
the  captain  of  the  tender,  who,  when  he  had  collected 
our  tickets,  invited  a  free-will  offering  for  collecting 
them,  and  mostly  got  it. 

When  we  were  safely  and  gladly  on  board  our 
steamer  again,  we  had  nothing  to  do,  until  the  deck- 
steward  came  round  with  tea,  but  watch  the  islanders 
swarming  around  us  in  their  cockles  and  diving  for 
sixpences  and  shillings,  which  they  caught  impartially 
with  their  fingers  and  toes.  With  so  many  all  shouting 
and  gesticulating,  one  could  not  venture  one's  silver 
indiscriminately;  one  must  employ  some  particular 
diver,  and  I  selected  for  my  investments  a  poor  young 
fellow  who  had  lost  an  arm.  With  his  one  hand  and 
his  two  feet  he  never  failed  of  the  coin  I  risked,  and 
I  wish  they  had  been  many  enough  to  enable  him  to 
retire  from  the  trade,  which  even  in  that  mild  air  kept 
him  visibly  shivering  when  out  of  the  water.  I  do 
not  know  his  name,  but  I  commend  him  to  future 
travellers  by  the  token  of  his  pathetic  mutilation. 

By-and-by  we  felt  the  gentle  stir  of  the  steamer  un 
der  us;  the  last  tender  went  ashore,  and  the  divers 
retired  in  their  cockles  from  our  side.  Funchal  began 
to  rearrange  the  lines  of  her  streets,  while  keeping 

12 


BOATS    AND    DIVING    BOYS,    FUNCHAL 


UP    AND    DOWN    MADEIRA 

those  of  her  roofs  and  house-walls  and  terraced  gar 
dens.  We  passed  out  of  the  roadstead,  we  rounded 
the  mighty  headland  by  which  we  had  entered,  and 
were  once  more  in  face  of  that  magnificent  drop- 
curtain,  which  had  now  fallen  upon  one  of  the  most 
vivid  and  novel  passages  of  our  lives. 


II 

TWO   UP-TOWN   BLOCKS   INTO    SPAIN 

THERE  is  nothing  strikes  the  traveller  in  his  ap 
proach  to  the  rock  of  Gibraltar  so  much  as  its  re 
semblance  to  the  trade-mark  of  the  Prudential  In 
surance  Company.  He  cannot  help  feeling  that  the 
famous  stronghold  is  pictorially  a  plagiarism  from  the 
advertisements  of  that  institution.  As  the  lines  change 
with  the  ship's  course,  the  resemblance  is  less  remark 
able;  but  it  is  always  remarkable,  and  I  suppose  it 
detracts  somewhat  from  the  majesty  of  the  fortress, 
which  we  could  wish  to  be  more  entirely  original. 
This  was  my  feeling  when  I  first  saw  Gibraltar  four 
years  ago,  and  it  remains  my  feeling  after  having 
last  seen  it  four  weeks  ago.  The  eye  seeks  the  bold, 
familiar  legend,  and  one  suffers  a  certain  disappoint 
ment  in  its  absence.  Otherwise  Gibraltar  does  not  and 
cannot  disappoint  the  most  exacting  tourist. 

The  morning  which  found  us  in  face  of  it  was  in 
brisk  contrast  to  the  bland  afternoon  on  which  we  had 
parted  from  Madeira.  No  flocking  coracles  surrounded 
our  steamer,  with  crews  eager  to  plunge  into  the  hiss 
ing  brine  for  shillings  or  equivalent  quarters.  The 
whitecaps  looked  snow  cold  as  they  tossed  under  the 
sharp  north  wind,  and  the  tender  which  put  us  ashore 
had  all  it  could  do  to  embark  and  disembark  us  up 
right,  or  even  aslant.  But,  once  in  the  lee  of  the  rock, 

14 


o 


TWO    UP-TOWN    BLOCKS    INTO    SPAIN 

Africa  breathed  a  genial  warmth  across  the  strait  be 
yond  which  its  summits  faintly  shimmered;  or  was  it 
the  welcome  of  Cook's  carriages  which  warmed  us 
so?  We  were  promised  separate  vehicles  for  parties 
of  three  or  four,  with  English-speaking  drivers,  and 
the  promise  was  fairly  well  kept.  The  carriages  bore 
a  strong  family  likeness  to  the  pictures  of  Spanish 
state  coaches  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  were  cur 
tained  and  cushioned  in  reddish  calico.  Rubber  tires 
are  yet  unknown  in  southern  Europe,  and  these  medi 
aeval  arks  bounded  over  the  stones  with  a  violence 
which  must  once  have  been  characteristic  of  those  in 
the  illustrations.  But  the  English  of  our  English- 
speaking  driver  was  all  that  we  could  have  asked  for 
the  shillings  we  paid  Cook  for  him,  or,  if  it  was  not, 
it  was  all  we  got.  He  was  an  energetic  young  fellow 
and  satisfyingly  Spanish  in  coloring,  but  in  his  eager 
ness  to  please  he  was  less  grave  than  I  could  now 
wish;  I  now  wish  everything  in  Spain  to  have  been 
in  keeping. 

What  was  most  perfectly,  most  fittingly  in  keeping 
was  the  sight  of  the  Moors  whom  we  began  at  once  to 
see  on  the  wharves  and  in  the  streets.  They  probably 
looked  very  much  like  the  Moors  who  followed  their 
caliph,  if  he  was  a  caliph,  into  Spain  when  he  drove 
Don  Roderick  out  of  his  kingdom  and  established  his 
own  race  and  religion  in  the  Peninsula.  Moslem  cos 
tumes  can  have  changed  very  little  in  the  last  eleven 
or  twelve  hundred  years,  and  these  handsome  fellows, 
who  had  come  over  with  fresh  eggs  and  vegetables 
and  chickens  and  turkeys  from  Tangier,  could  not 
have  been  handsomer  when  they  bore  scimitars  and 
javelins  instead  of  coops  and  baskets.  They  had  baggy 
drawers  on,  and  brown  cloaks,  with  bare,  red  legs  and 
yellow  slippers;  one,  when  he  took  his  fez  off,  had  a 

15 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

head  shaved  perfectly  bald,  like  the  one-eyed  Calender 
or  the  Barber's  brother  out  of  the  Arabian  Nights; 
the  sparse  mustache  and  short-forked  beard  heightened 
the  verisimilitude.  Whether  they  squatted  on  the 
wharf,  or  passed  gravely  through  the  street,  or  waited 
for  custom  in  their  little  market  among  the  hen-coops 
and  the  herds  of  rather  lean,  dispirited  turkeys  (which 
had  not  the  satisfaction  of  their  American  kindred  in 
being  fattened  for  the  sacrifice,  for  in  Europe  all 
turkeys  are  served  lean),  these  Moors  had  an  allure 
impossible  to  any  Occidental  race.  It  was  greater 
even  than  that  of  their  Semitic  brethren,  who  had  a 
market  farther  up  in  the  town,  and  showed  that  a 
Jewish  market  could  be  much  filthier  than  a  Moor 
ish  market  without  being  more  picturesque.  Into  the 
web  of  Oriental  life  were  wrought  the  dapper  figures 
of  the  red-coated,  red-cheeked  English  soldiers,  with 
blue,  blue  eyes  and  incredible  red  and  yellow  hair, 
lounging  or  hurrying  orderlies  with  swagger  -  sticks, 
and  apparently  aimless  privates  no  doubt  bent  upon 
quite  definite  business  or  pleasure.  2sow  and  then 
an  English  groom  led  an  English  horse  through  the 
long  street  from  which  the  other  streets  in  Gibraltar 
branch  up  and  down  hill,  for  there  is  no  other  level; 
and  now  and  then  an  English  man  or  woman  rode 
trimly  by. 

The  whole  place  is  an  incongruous  mixture  of  Latin 
and  Saxon.  The  strictly  South-European  effect  of  the 
houses  and  churches  is  a  mute  protest  against  the 
alien  presence  which  keeps  the  streets  so  clean  and 
maintains  order  by  means  of  policemen  showing  un 
der  the  helmets  of  the  London  bobby  the  faces  of 
the  native  alguazil.  In  the  shops  the  saleswomen 
speak  English  and  look  Spanish.  Our  driver,  in 
deed,  looked  more  Spanish  than  he  spoke  English. 

16 


TWO    UP-TOWN    BLOCKS    INTO    SPAIN 

His  knowledge  of  our  rude  tongue  extended  hardly 
beyond  the  mention  of  certain  conventional  objects  of 
interest,  and  did  not  suffice  to  explain  why  we  could 
not  see  the  old  disused  galleries  of  the  fortifications. 
I  do  not  know  why  we  wished  to  see  these;  I  doubt  if 
we  really  did  so,  but  we  embittered  life  for  that  well- 
meaning  boy  by  our  insistence  upon  them,  and  we 
brought  him  under  unjust  suspicion  of  deceit  by  forc 
ing  him  to  a  sort  of  time-limit  in  respect  to  them. 
We  appealed  from  him  to  the  blandest  of  black-mus- 
tached,  olive-skinned  bobby-alguazils,  who  directed  us 
to  a  certain  government  office  for  a  permit.  There 
our  application  caused  something  like  dismay,  and  we 
were  directed  to  another  office,  but  were  saved  from 
the  shame  of  failure  by  incidentally  learning  that  the 
galleries  could  not  be  seen  till  after  three  o'clock.  As 
our  ship  sailed  at  that  hour,  we  were  probably  saved  a 
life-long  disappointment. 

Everywhere  the  rock  of  the  Prudential  beetles  and 
towers  over  the  town;  but  the  fortifications  are  so  far 
up  in  the  sky  that  you  can  really  distinguish  noth 
ing  but  the  Marconi  telegraphic  apparatus  at  the  top. 
Along  the  sea-level,  which  the  town  mostly  keeps,  the 
war-like  harness  of  the  stronghold  shows  through  the 
civil  dress  of  the  town  in  barracks  and  specific  forts 
and  gray  battle-ships  lying  at  anchor  in  the  docks.  But 
all  is  simple  and  reserved,  in  the  right  English  fash 
ion.  The  strength  of  the  place  is  not  to  be  put  forth 
till  it  is  needed,  which  will  be  never,  since  it  is  hard 
to  imagine  how  it  can  ever  be  even  attempted  by  a 
hostile  force.  This  is  not  saying,  I  hope,  that  an 
American  fleet  could  not  batter  it  down,  nor  leave 
one  letter  of  the  insurance  advertisement  after  another 
on  the  face  of  the  precipice. 

There  is  a  pretty  public  garden  at  Gibraltar  in  that 
2  17 


EOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

part  of  the  town  which  is  farthest  from  the  steamer's 
landing,  and  this  proved  the  end  of  our  excursion  in 
our  state  coach.  We  found  other  state  coaches  there, 
and  joined  their  passengers  in  strolling  over  the  pleas 
ant  paths  and  trying  to  make  out  what  bird  it  was 
singing  somewhere  in  the  trees.  We  made  out  an 
almond -tree  in  bloom,  after  some  dispute;  and,  in 
fact,  the  climate  there  was  much  softer  than  at  the 
landing,  so  insidiously  soft  that  it  required  great  force 
of  character  to  keep  from  buying  the  flowers  which 
some  tasteful  boys  gathered  from  the  public  beds. 
There  is  a  mild  monument  or  two  in  this  garden,  to 
what  memories  I  promptly  failed  to  remember  after 
ward  ;  but  as  there  are  more  military  memories  in  the 
world  than  is  good  for  it,  and  as  these  were  undoubt 
edly  military  memories,  I  cannot  much  blame  myself 
in  the  matter.  After  viewing  them,  there  was  nothing 
left  to  do  but  to  get  lunch,  which  we  got  extremely 
good  at  the  hotel  where  a  friend  led  us.  There  was 
at  this  hotel  a  head-waiter,  in  a  silver-braided  silk 
dress-coat  of  a  mauve  color,  who  imagined  our  wants 
so  perfectly  that  I  shall  always  regret  not  taking  more 
of  the  omelette ;  the  table-waiter  urged  it  upon  us  twice 
with  true  friendliness.  The  eggs  must  have  been  laid 
for  it  in  Africa  that  morning  at  daybreak,  and  brought 
over  by  a  Moorish  marketman,  but  we  turned  from  the 
poetic  experience  of  this  omelette  in  the  greedy  hope 
of  better  things.  Better  things  there  could  not  be,  but 
the  fish  was  as  good  as  the  fish  at  Madeira,  and  the 
belief  of  the  chops  that  they  were  lamb  and  not  kid 
seemed  better  founded. 

There  had  been  an  excellent  bottle  of  Eioja  Blanca, 
such  as  you  may  have  as  good  at  some  Spanish  restau 
rant  in  !N"ew  York  for  as  little  money;  and  the  lunch, 
when  reckoned  tip  in  English  shillings  and  Spanish 

18 


TWO    TIP-TOWN    BLOCKS    INTO    SPAIN 

undertones,  was  not  cheap.  Yet  it  was  not  dear,  either, 
and  there  was  no  specific  charge  for  that  silver-braided 
dress-coat  of  a  mauve  color.  An  English  dean  in  full 
clericals,  and  some  English  ladies  talking  in  the  wait 
ing-room,  added  an  agreeable  confusion  to  our  doubt 
of  where  and  what  we  were,  and  we  came  away  from 
the  hotel  as  well  content  as  if  we  had  lunched  in 
Plymouth  or  Bath.  The  table-waiter  took  an  extra 
fee  for  confiding  that  he  was  a  Milanese,  and  was 
almost  the  only  Italian  in  Gibraltar;  whether  he  was 
right  or  not  I  do  not  know,  but  it  was  certainly  not 
his  fault  that  we  did  not  take  twice  of  the  omelette. 

It  is  said  that  living  is  dear  in  Gibraltar,  especially 
in  the  matter  of  house  rent.  The  houses  in  the  town 
are  like  all  the  houses  of  Latin  Europe  in  their  gray 
or  yellowish  walls  of  stone  or  stucco  and  their  dark- 
green  shutters.  There  is  an  English  residential  quar 
ter  at  the  east  end  of  the  town,  where  the  houses  may 
be  different,  for  all  I  know;  the  English  of  our  driver 
or  the  hire  of  our  state  coach  did  not  enable  us  to 
visit  that  suburb,  where  the  reader  may  imagine  villas 
standing  in  grounds  with  lawns  and  gardens  about 
them.  The  English  have  prevailed  nothing  against  the 
local  civilization  in  most  things,  while  they  have  in 
fected  it  with  the  costliness  of  the  whole  Anglo-Saxon 
life.  We  should  not  think  seven  hundred  dollars  in 
New  York  dear  for  even  a  quite  small  house,  but  it  has 
come  to  that  in  Gibraltar,  and  there  they  think  it  dear, 
with  other  things  proportionately  so.  Of  course,  it  is 
an  artificial  place ;  the  fortress  makes  the  town,  and  the 
town  in  turn  lives  upon  the  fortress. 

The  English  plant  themselves  nowhere  without  gath 
ering  English  conveniences  or  conventions  about  them; 
'Americans  would  not  always  think  them  comforts. 

There  is  at  Gibraltar  a  club  or  clubs ;  there  is  a  hunt, 

19 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

there  is  a  lending  library,  there  is  tennis,  there  is  golf, 
there  is  bridge,  there  is  a  cathedral,  and  I  dare  say 
there  is  gossip,  but  I  do  not  know  it.  It  was  difficult 
to  get  land  for  the  golf  links,  we  heard,  because  of 
the  Spanish  jealousy  of  the  English  occupation,  which 
they  will  not  have  extended  any  farther  over  Spanish 
soil,  even  in  golf  links.  Gibraltar  is  fondly  or  whim 
sically  known  to  the  invaders  as  Gib,  and  I  believe  it 
is  rather  a  favorite  sojourn,  though  in  summer  it  is 
frightfully  hot,  held  out  on  the  knees  and  insteps  of 
the  rock  to  the  burning  African  sun,  which  comes  up 
every  morning  over  the  sea  after  setting  Sahara  on 
fire. 

All  this  foreign  life  must  be  exterior  to  the  ab 
original  Spanish  life  which  has  so  long  outlasted  the 
Moorish,  and  is  not  without  hope  of  outlasting  the 
English.  I  do  not  know  what  the  occupations  and 
amusements  of  that  life  are,  but  I  will  suppose  them 
unworthy  enough.  There  must  be  a  certain  space  of 
neutral  life  uniting  or  dividing  the  two,  which  would 
form  a  curious  inquiry,  but  would  probably  not  lend 
itself  to  literary  study.  Besides  this  middle  ground 
there  is  another  neutral  territory  at  Gibraltar  which 
we  traversed  after  luncheon,  in  order  to  say  that  we 
had  been  in  Spain.  That  was  the  country  of  many 
more  youthful  dreamers  in  my  time  than,  I  fancy,  it 
is  in  this.  We  used  then,  much  more  than  now,  to 
read  Washington  Irving,  his  Tales  of  the  'Alhambra, 
and  his  history  of  The  Conquest  of  Granada,  and  we 
read  Prescott's  histories  of  Spanish  kings  and  advent 
ures  in  the  old  world  and  the  new.  We  read  Don 
Quixote,,  which  very  few  read  now,  and  we  read  Gil 
Bias,  which  fewer  still  now  read;  and  all  these  con 
stituted  Spain  a  realm  of  faery,  where  every  sort  of 
delightful  things  did  or  could  happen.  I  for  my  part 

20 


TWO    TIP-TOWN    BLOCKS    INTO    SPAIN 

had  always  expected  to  go  to  Spain  and  live  among 
the  people  I  had  known  in  those  charming  books,  yet 
I  had  been  often  in  Europe,  and  had  spent  whole  years 
there  without  ever  going  near  Spain.  But  now,  I 
saw,  was  my  chance,  and  when  the  friend  who  had 
been  lunching  with  us  asked  if  we  would  not  like  to 
drive  across  that  neutral  territory  and  go  into  Spain 
a  bit,  it  seemed  as  if  the  dream  of  my  youth  had 
suddenly  renewed  itself  with  the  purpose  of  coming 
immediately  true.  It  was  a  charmingly  characteristic 
foretaste  of  Spanish  travel  that  the  driver  of  the  state 
coach  which  we  first  engaged  should,  when  we  pres 
ently  came  back,  have  replaced  himself  by  another  for 
no  other  reason  than,  perhaps,  that  he  could  so  provide 
us  with  a  worse  horse.  I  am  not  sure  of  this  theory, 
and  I  do  not  insist  upon  it,  but  it  seems  plausible. 

As  soon  as  we  rounded  the  rock  of  Gibraltar  and 
struck  across  a  flatter  country  than  I  supposed  could 
be  found  within  fifty  miles  of  Gibraltar,  we  were  swept 
by  a  blast  which  must  have  come  from  the  Pyrenees, 
it  was  so  savagely  rough  and  cold.  It  may  be  always 
blowing  there  as  a  Spanish  protest  against  the  English 
treatment  of  the  neutral  territory;  in  fact,  it  does  not 
seem  quite  the  thing  to  build  over  that  space  as  the 
English  have  done,  though  the  structures  are  entirely 
peaceable,  and  it  is  not  strange  that  the  Spaniards 
have  refused  to  meet  them  half-way  with  a  good  road 
over  it,  or  to  let  them  make  one  the  whole  way.  They 
stand  gravely  opposed  to  any  further  incursion.  Of 
ficially  in  all  the  Spanish  documents  the  place  is  styled 
"  Gibraltar,  temporarily  occupied  by  Great  Britain," 
and  there  is  a  little  town  which  you  see  sparkling  in 
the  sun  no  great  way  off  in  Spain  called  San  Koque, 
of  which  the  mayor  is  also  mayor  of  Gibraltar;  he 
visits  his  province  once  a  vear,  and  many  people  living 

" 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

for  generations  over  the  Spanish  line  keep  the  keys 
of  the  houses  that  they  personally  or  ancestrally  own. 
in  Gibraltar.  The  case  has  its  pathos,  but  as  a  selfish 
witness  I  wish  they  had  let  the  English  make  that  road 
through  the  neutral  territory.  The  present  road  is  so 
bad  that  our  state  coach,  in  bounding  over  its  inequali 
ties,  sometimes  almost  flung  us  into  the  arms  of  the 
Spanish  beggars  always  extended  toward  us.  They 
were  probably  most  of  them  serious,  but  some  of  the 
younger  ones  recognized  the  bouffe  quality  of  their  call 
ing.  One  pleasant  starveling  of  ten  or  twelve  en 
treated  us  for  bread  with  a  cigarette  in  his  mouth,  and, 
being  rewarded  for  his  impudence,  entered  into  the 
spirit  of  the  affair  and  asked  for  more,  just  as  if  we 
had  given  nothing. 

A  squalid  little  town  grew  up  out  of  the  flying  gravel 
as  we  approached,  and  we  left  our  state  coach  at  the 
custom-house,  which  seemed  the  chief  public  edifice. 
There  the  inspectors  did  not  go  through  the  form  of  ex 
amining  our  hand-bags,  as  they  would  have  done  at  an 
American  frontier;  and  they  did  not  pierce  our  car 
riage  cushions  with  the  long  javelins  with  which  they 
are  armed  for  the  detection  of  smuggling  among  the 
natives  who  have  been  shopping  in  Gibraltar.  As  the 
gates  of  that  town  are  closed  every  day  at  nightfall 
by  a  patrol  with  drum  and  fife,  and  everybody  is  shut 
either  in  or  out,  it  may  easily  happen  with  shoppers  in 
haste  to  get  through  that  they  bring  dutiable  goods  into 
Spain;  but  the  official  javelins  rectify  the  error. 

We  left  our  belongings  in  our  state  coach  and  started 
for  that  stroll  in  Spain  which  I  have  measured  as  two 
up  -  town  blocks,  by  what  I  think  a  pretty  accurate 
guess;  two  cross-town  blocks  I  am  sure  it  was  not. 
It  was  a  mean-looking  street,  unswept  and  otherwise  un 
kempt,  with  the  usual  yellowish  or  grayish  buildings, 

22 


TWO    UP-TOWN    BLOCKS    INTO    SPAIN 

rather  low  and  rather  new,  as  if  prompted  by  a  mistaken 
modern  enterprise.  They  were  both  shops  and  dwell 
ings;  I  am  sure  of  a  neat  pharmacy  and  a  fresh-look 
ing  cafe  restaurant,  and  one  dwelling  all  faced  with 
bright-green  tiles.  An  algnazil — I  am  certain  he  was 
an  alguazil,  though  he  looked  like  an  Italian  carabiniere 
and  wore  a  cocked  hat — loitered  into  a  police  station; 
but  I  remember  no  one  else  during  our  brief  stay  in 
that  street  except  those  bouffe  boy  beggars.  Of  course, 
they  wished  to  sell  us  postal  -  cards,  but  they  were 
willing  to  accept  charity  on  any  terms.  Otherwise 
our  Spanish  tour  was,  so  far  as  we  then  knew,  ab 
solutely  without  incident;  but  when  we  got  too  far 
away  to  return  we  found  that  we  had  been  among 
brigands  as  well  as  beggars,  and  all  the  Spanish  pica 
resque  fiction  seemed  to  come  true  in  the  theft  of  a 
black  chudda  shawl,  which  had  indeed  been  so  often 
lost  in  duplicate  that  it  was  time  it  was  entirely  lost. 
Whether  it  was  secretly  confiscated  by  the  customs,  or 
was  accepted  as  a  just  tribute  by  the  populace  from  a 
poetic  admirer,  I  do  not  know,  but  I  hope  it  is  now 
in  the  keeping  of  some  dark-eyed  Spanish  girl,  who 
will  wear  it  while  murmuring  through  her  lattice  to 
her  novio  on  the  pavement  outside.  It  was  rather 
heavy  to  be  worn  as  a  veil,  but  I  am  sure  she  could 
manage  it  after  dark,  and  could  hold  it  under  her 
chin,  as  she  leaned  forward  to  the  grille,  with  one  little 
olive  hand,  so  that  the  novio  would  think  it  was  a  black 
silk  mantilla.  Or  if  it  was  a  gift  from  him,  it  would 
be  all  right,  anyway. 

Our  visit  to  Spain  did  not  wholly  realize  my  early 
dreams  of  that  romantic  land,  and  yet  it  had  not  been 
finally  destitute  of  incident.  Besides,  we  had  not  gone 
very  far  into  the  country;  a  third  block  might  have 

teemed  with  adventure,  but  we  had  to  be  back  on  the 

23 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

steamer  before  three  o'clock,  and  we  dared  not  go  be 
yond  the  second.  Even  within  this  limit  a  love  of 
reality  underlying  all  my  love  of  romance  was  satis 
fied  in  the  impression  left  by  that  dusty,  empty,  silent 
street.  It  seemed  somehow  like  the  street  of  a  new, 
dreary,  Western  American  town,  so  that  I  afterward 
could  hardly  believe  that  the  shops  and  restaurants 
had  not  eked  out  their  height  with  dashboard  fronts. 
It  was  not  a  place  that  I  would  have  chosen  for  a 
summer  sojourn;  the  sense  of  a  fly-blown  past  must 
have  become  a  vivid  part  of  future  experience,  and  yet 
I  could  imagine  that  if  one  were  born  to  it,  and  were 
young  and  hopeful,  and  had  some  one  to  share  one's 
youth  and  hope,  that  Spanish  street,  which  was  all 
there  was  of  that  Spanish  town,  might  have  had  its 
charm.  I  do  not  say  that  even  for  age  there  was  not 
a  railway  station  by  which  one  might  have  got  away, 
though  there  was  no  sign  of  any  trains  arriving  or  de 
parting — perhaps  because  it  was  not  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  which  is  the  favorite  hour  of  departure  for 
Spanish  trains. 

When  we  turned  to  drive  back  over  the  neutral 
territory  the  rock  of  Gibraltar  suddenly  bulked  up 
before  us,  in  a  sheer  ascent  that  left  the  familiar  Pru 
dential  view  in  utterly  inconspicuous  unimpressive- 
ness.  Till  one  has  seen  it  from  this  point  one  has 
not  truly  seen  it.  The  vast  stone  shows  like  a  half 
from  which  the  other  half  has  been  sharply  cleft  and 
removed,  that  the  sense  of  its  precipitous  magnitude 
may  unrelievedly  strike  the  eye;  and  it  seems  to  have 
in  that  moment  the  whole  world  to  tower  up  in  from 
the  level  at  its  feet,  No  dictionary,  however  un 
abridged,  has  language  adequate  to  convey  the  no 
tion  of  it. 


Ill 

ASHOEE  AT  GEKOA 

THE  pride  of  Americans  in  their  native  scenery  is 
brought  down  almost  to  the  level  of  the  South  Shore  of 
Long  Island  in  arriving  home  from  the  Mediterranean 
voyage  to  Europe.  The  last  thing  one  sees  in  Europe  is 
the  rock  of  Gibraltar,  but  before  that  there  have  been 
the  snow-topped  Maritime  Alps  of  Italy  and  the  gray- 
brown,  softly  rounded,  velvety  heights  of  Spain;  and 
one  has  to  think  very  hard  of  the  Palisades  above  the 
point  where  they  have  been  blasted  away  for  road- 
making  material  if  one  wishes  to  keep  up  one's  spirits. 
The  last  time  I  came  home  the  Mediterranean  way  I 
had  a  struggle  with  myself  against  excusing  our  sandy 
landscape,  when  we  came  in  sight  of  it,  with  its  sum 
mer  cottages  for  the  sole  altitudes,  to  some  Italian 
fellow  -  passengers  who  were  not  spellbound  by  its 
grandeur.  I  had  to  remember  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
which  I  had  never  seen,  and  all  the  moral  magnificence 
of  our  life  before  I  could  withhold  the  words  of  apology 
pressing  to  my  lips.  I  was  glad  that  I  succeeded ;  but 
now,  going  back  by  the  same  route,  I  abandoned  my 
self  to  transports  in  the  beauty  of  the  Mediterranean 
coast  which  I  hope  were  not  untrue  to  my  country. 
Perhaps  there  is  no  country  which  can  show  any 
thing  like  that  beauty,  and  America  is  no  worse  off 
than  the  rest  of  the  world;  but  I  am  not  sure  that 

25 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

I  have  a  right  to  this  consolation.     Again  there  were 
those 

"  Silent  pinnacles  of  aged  snow," 

flushed  with  the  Southern  sun;  again  those  sombre 
slopes  of  pine;  again  the  olives  climbing  to  their 
gloom;  again  the  terraced  vineyards  and  the  white 
farmsteads,  with  villages  nestling  in  the  vast  clefts 
of  the  hills,  and  all  along  the  sea  -  level  the  blond 
towns  and  cities  which  broider  the  hem  of  the  land 
from  Marseilles  to  Genoa.  One  is  willing  to  brag; 
one  must  be  a  good  American;  but,  honestly,  have 
we  anything  like  that  to  show  the  arriving  foreigner? 
For  some  reason  our  ship  was  abating  the  speed  with 
which  she  had  crossed  the  Atlantic,  and  now  she  was 
swimming  along  the  Mediterranean  coasts  so  slowly 
and  so  closely  that  it  seemed  as  if  we  could  almost 
have  cast  an  apple  ashore,  though  probably  we  could 
not.  We  were  at  least  far  enough  off  to  mistake  Nice 
for  Monte  Carlo  and  then  for  San  Biemo,  but  that  was 
partly  because  our  course  was  so  leisurely,  and  we 
thought  we  must  have  passed  Nice  long  before  we  did. 
It  did  not  matter ;  all  those  places  were  alike  beautiful 
under  the  palms  of  their  promenades,  with  their  scat 
tered  villas  and  hotels  stretching  along  their  upper 
levels,  and  the  ranks  of  shops  and  dwellings  solidly 
forming  the  streets  which  left  the  shipping  of  their 
ports  to  climb  to  the  gardens  and  farms  beyond  the 
villas.  Cannes,  Mentone,  Ventimiglia,  Ospedeletti, 
Bordighera,  Taggia,  Alassio:  was  that  their  fair  suc 
cession,  or  did  they  follow  in  another  order?  Once 
more  it  did  not  matter;  what  is  certain  is  that  the 
golden  sun  of  the  soft  January  afternoon  turned  to 

crimson  and  left  the  last  of  them  suffused  in  dim  rose 

26 


ASHORE    AT    GENOA 

before  we  drifted  into  Genoa  and  came  to  anchor  at 
dusk  beside  a  steamer  which  had  left  'New  York  on 
the  same  day  as  ours.  By  her  vast  size  we  could  meas 
ure  our  own  and  have  an  objective  perception  of  our 
grandeur.  We  had  crossed  in  one  of  the  largest  ships 
afloat,  but  you  cannot  be  both  spectacle  and  spectator; 
and  you  must  match  your  magnificence  with  some  rival 
magnificence  before  you  can  have  a  due  sense  of  it. 
That  was  what  we  now  got  at  Genoa,  and  we  could  not 
help  pitying  the  people  on  that  other  ship,  who  must 
have  suffered  shame  from  our  overwhelming  magni 
tude  ;  the  fact  that  she  was  of  nearly  the  same  tonnage 
as  our  own  ship  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  case. 

After  the  creamy  and  rosy  tints  of  those  daughters 
of  climate  along  the  Kiviera,  it  was  pleasant  to  find 
a  many-centuried  mother  of  commerce  like  Genoa  of 
the  dignified  gray  which  she  wears  to  the  eye,  whether 
it  looks  down  on  her  from  the  heights  above  her  port 
or  up  at  her  from  the  thickly  masted  and  thickly  fun 
nelled  waters  of  the  harbor.  Most  European  towns 
have  red  tiled  roofs,  which  one  gets  rather  tired  of 
putting  into  one's  word  paintings,  but  the  roofs  of 
Genoa  are  gray  tiled,  and  gray  are  her  serried  house 
walls,  and  gray  her  many  churches  and  bell-towers. 
The  sober  tone  gratifies  your  eye  immensely,  and  the 
fact  that  your  eye  has  noted  it  and  not  attributed  the 
conventional  coloring  of  southern  Europe  to  the  city 
is  a  flattery  to  your  pride  which  you  will  not  refuse. 
It  is  not  a  setting  for  opera  like  Naples ;  there  is  some 
thing  businesslike  in  it  which  agrees  with  your  Amer-  J 
ican  mood  if  you  are  true  to  America,  and  recalls  you 
to  duty  if  you  are  not. 

I  had  not  been  in  Genoa  since  1864  except  for  a 
few  days  in  1905,  and  I  saw  changes  which  I  will 

mostly  not  specify.     Alreadv  at  the  earlier  date  the 

27 " 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

railway  had  cut  through  the  beautiful  and  reverend 
Doria  garden  and  left  the  old  palace  some  scanty 
grounds  on  the  sea-level,  where  commerce  noisily  en 
compassed  it  with  trams  and  tracks  and  lines  of  freight- 
cars.  But  there  had  remained  up  to  my  last  visit  that 
grot  on  the  gardened  hill-slope  whence  a  colossal  marble 
Hercules  helplessly  overlooked  the  offence  offered  by 
the  railroad;  and  now  suddenly  here  was  the  lofty 
wall  of  some  new  edifice  stretching  across  in  front 
of  the  Hercules  and  wholly  shutting  him  from  view; 
for  all  I  know  it  may  have  made  him  part  of  its 
structure. 

Let  this  stand  for  a  type  of  the  change  which  had 
passed  upon  Genoa  and  has  passed  or  is  passing  upon 
all  Italy.  The  trouble  is  that  Italy  is  full  of  very 
living  Italians,  the  quickest-witted  people  in  the  world, 
who  are  alert  to  seize  every  chance  for  bettering  them 
selves  financially  as  they  have  bettered  themselves  polit 
ically.  For  my  part,  I  always  wonder  they  do  not  still 
rule  the  world  when  I  see  how  intellectually  fit  they 
are  to  do  it,  how  beyond  any  other  race  they  seem 
still  equipped  for  their  ancient  primacy.  Possibly  it 
is  their  ancient  primacy  which  hangs  about  their  necks 
and  loads  them  down.  It  is  better  to  have  too  little 
past,  as  we  have,  than  too  much,  as  they  have.  But  if 
antiquity  hampers  them,  they  are  tenderer  of  its  vast 
mass  than  we  are  of  our  little  fragments  of  it ;  tenderer 
than  any  other  people,  except  perhaps  the  English,  have 
shown  themselves;  but  when  the  time  comes  that  the 
past  stands  distinctly  in  the  way  of  the  future,  down 
goes  the  past,  even  in  Italy.  I  am  not  saying  that  I 
do  not  see  why  that  railroad  could  not  have  tunnelled 
under  the  Doria  garden  rather  than  cut  through  it; 
and  I  am  waiting  for  that  new  building  to  justify  its 
behavior  toward  that  poor  old  Hercules;  but  in  the 

28 


ASHOKE    AT    GENOA 

mean  time  I  hold  that  Italy  is  for  the  Italians  who  / 
now  live  in  it,  and  have  to  get  that  better  living  out  of 
it  which  we  others  all  want  our  countries  to  yield  us ; 
and  that  it  is  not  merely  a  playground  for  tourists  ^ 
who  wish  to  sentimentalize  it,  or  study  it,  or  sketch  it, 
or  make  copy  of  it,  as  I  am  doing  now. 

All  the  same  I  will  not  deny  that  I  enjoyed  more 
than  any  of  the  improvements  which  I  noted  in  Genoa 
that  bit  of  the  old  Doria  palace-grounds  which  progress 
has  left  it.  The  gray  edifice  looks  out  on  the  neighbor 
ing  traffic  across  the  leanness  of  a  lovely  old  garden,  with 
statues  and  stone  seats,  and  in  the  midst  a  softly  solil 
oquizing  fountain,  painted  green  with  moss  and  mould. 
When  you  enter  the  palace,  as  you  do  in  response 
to  a  custodian  who  soon  comes  with  a  key  and  asks 
if  you  would  like  to  see  it,  you  find  yourself,  one  flight 
up,  in  a  long  glazed  gallery,  fronting  on  the  garden, 
which  is  so  warm  with  the  sun  that  you  wish  to  spend 
the  rest  of  your  stay  in  Genoa  there.  It  is  frescoed 
round  with  classically  imagined  portraits  of  the  dif 
ferent  Dorias,  and  above  all  the  portrait  of  that  great 
hero  of  the  republic.  I  do  not  know  that  this  portrait 
particularly  impresses  you;  if  you  have  been  here  be 
fore  you  will  be  reserving  yourself  for  the  portrait 
which  the  custodian  will  lead  you  to  see  in  the  ultimate 
chamber  of  the  rather  rude  old  palace,  where  it  is  like 
a  living  presence. 

It  is  the  picture  of  a  very  old  man  in  a  flat  cap, 
sitting  sunken  forward  in  his  deep  chair,  with  his  thin, 
long  hands  folded  one  on  the  other,  and  looking  wearily 
at  you  out  of  his  faded  eyes,  in  which  dwell  the  memo 
ries  of  action  in  every  sort  and  counsel  in  every  kind. 
^7rictor  in  battles  by  land  and  sea,  statesman  and  leader 
and  sage,  he  looks  it  all  in  that  wonderful  effigy,  which 
shuns  no  effect  of  his  more  than  ninety  years,  but  con- 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

fesses  his  great  age  as  a  part  of  his  greatness  with  a 
pathetic  reality.  The  white  beard,  with  "  each  particu 
lar  hair "  defined,  falling  almost  to  the  pale,  lean 
hands,  is  an  essential  part  of  the  presentment,  which 
is  full  of  such  scrupulous  detail  as  the  eye  would  un 
consciously  take  note  of  in  confronting  the  man  him 
self  and  afterward  supply  in  the  remembrance  of  the 
whole.  As  if  it  were  a  part  of  his  personality,  on  a 
table  facing  him,  covered  with  maps  and  papers,  sits 
the  mighty  admiral's  cat,  which,  with  true  feline  im- 
passiveness,  ignores  the  spectator  and  gives  its  sole  re 
gard  to  the  admiral.  There  are  possibly  better  por 
traits  in  the  world  than  this,  which  was  once  by 
Sebastiano  del  Piombo  and  is  now  by  Titian;  but  I 
remember  none  which  has  moved  me  more. 

We  tried  in  vain  for  a  photograph  of  it,  and  then 
after  a  brief  glance  at  the  riches  of  the  Church  of  the 
Annunziata,  where  we  were  followed  around  the  in 
terior  by  a  sacristan  who  desired  us  to  note  that  the 
pillars  were  "  All  inlady,  all  inlady "  with  different 
marbles,  and,  after  a  chilly  moment  in  San  Lorenzo, 
which  the  worshippers  and  the  masons  were  sharing 
between  them  in  the  prayers  and  repairs  always  going 
on  in  cathedrals,  we  drove  for  luncheon  to  the  hotel 
where  we  had  sojourned  in  great  comfort  three  years 
before.  Genoa  has  rather  a  bad  name  for  its  hotels, 
but  we  had  found  this  one  charming,  perhaps  because 
when  we  had  objected  to  going  five  flights  up  the  land 
lord  had  led  us  yet  a  floor  higher,  that  we  might  walk 
into  the  garden.  It  is  so  in  much  of  Genoa,  where  the 
precipitous  nature  of  the  site  makes  this  vivid  contrast 
between  the  levels  of  the  front  door  and  the  back  gate. 
Many  of  the  streets  have  been  widened  since  Heine 
saw  the  gossiping  neighbors  touching  knees  across  them, 
but  nothing  less  than  an  earthquake  could  change  the 

30 


ASHORE    AT    GENOA 

temperamental  topography  of  the  place.  It  has  its  ad 
vantages;  when  there  is  a  ring  at  the  door  the  house 
maid,  instead  of  panting  up  from  the  kitchen  to  an 
swer  it,  has  merely  to  fall  down  five  pairs  of  stairs. 
It  cannot  be  denied,  either,  that  the  steep  incline  gives 
a  charm  to  the  streets  which  overcome  it  with  side 
walks  and  driveways  and  trolley-tracks.  Such  a  street 
as  the  Via  Garibaldi  (there  is  a  Via  Garibaldi  in  every 
Italian  city,  town,  and  village,  and  ought  to  be  a 
dozen),  compactly  built,  but  giving  here  and  there 
over  the  houses7  shoulders  glimpses  of  the  gardens  lurk 
ing  behind  them,  is  of  a  dignity  full  of  the  energy 
which  a  flat  thoroughfare  never  displays  or  imparts. 
Without  the  inspiration  lent  us  by  the  street,  I  am  sure 
we  should  never  have  got  to  the  top  of  it  with  our  cab 
when  we  went  to  the  Campo  Santo ;  and,  as  it  was,  we 
had  to  help  our  horses  upward  by  involuntarily  strain 
ing  forward  from  our  places.  But  the  Campo  Santo 
was  richly  worth  the  effort,  for  to  visit  that  famous 
cemetery  is  to  enjoy  an  experience  of  which  it  is  the 
unique  opportunity. 

I  wish  to  celebrate  it  because  it  seems  to  me  one  of 
the  frankest  expressions  of  national  taste  and  nature, 
and  I  do  like  simplicity  —  in  others.  The  modern 
Italians  are  the  most  literal  of  the  realists  in  all  the 
arts,  and,  as  I  had  striven  for  reality  in  my  own  poor 
way,  I  was  perhaps  the  more  curious  to  see  its  effects 
in  sculpture  which  I  had  heard  of  so  much.  I  will 
own  that  they  went  far  beyond  my  expectation  and 
possibly  my  wishes;  but  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
it  is  only  inferior  artists  who  have  abandoned  them 
selves  to  the  excesses  of  fidelity  so  abundant  in  the 
Campo  Santo.  There  are,  of  course,  enough  poor 
falterings  of  allegory  and  tradition  in  the  marble 

walls  and  floors  of  this  vast  residence  of  the  dead  (as 

31 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEKS 

it  gives  you  the  cheerful  impression  of  being),  but 
the  characteristic  note  of  the  place  is  a  realism  brav 
ing  it  out  in  every  extreme  of  actuality.  Possibly  the 
fact  is  most  striking  in  that  death-bed  scene  where  the 
family,  life-size  and  unsparingly  portraitured,  and,  as 
it  were,  photographed  in  marble,  are  gathered  in  the 
room  of  the  dying  mother.  She  lies  on  a  bedstead 
which  bears  every  mark  of  being  one  of  a  standard 
chamber-set  in  the  early  eighteen-seventies,  and  about 
her  stand  her  husband  and  her  sons  and  daughters  and 
their  wives  and  husbands,  in  the  fashions  of  that  day. 
I  recall  a  brother,  in  a  cutaway  coat,  and  a  daughter, 
in  a  tie-back,  embraced  in  their  grief  and  turning  their 
faces  away  from  their  mother  toward  the  spectator; 
and  doubtless  there  were  others  whom  to  describe  in 
their  dress  would  render  as  grotesque.  It  is  enough 
to  say  that  the  artist,  of  a  name  well  known  in  Italy 
and  of  uncommon  gift,  has  been  as  true  to  the  moment 
in  their  costume  as  to  the  eternal  humanity  in  their 
faces.  He  has  done  what  the  sculptor  or  painter  of 
the  great  periods  of  art  used  to  do  with  their  historical 
and  scriptural  people — he  has  put  them  in  the  dress  of 
his  own  time  and  place;  and  it  is  impossible  to  deny 
him  a  convincing  logic.  !Nb  sophistry  or  convention  of 
drapery  in  the  scene  could  have  conveyed  its  pathos 
half  so  well,  or  indeed  at  all.  It  does  make  you  shud 
der,  I  allow;  it  sets  your  teeth  on  edge;  but  then,  if 
you  are  a  real  man  or  woman,  it  brings  the  lump  into 
your  throat;  the  smile  fails  from  your  lip;  you  pay 
the  tribute  of  genuine  pity  and  awe.  I  will  not  pre 
tend  that  I  was  so  much  moved  by  the  meeting  in 
heaven  of  a  son  and  father:  the  spirit  of  the  son  in 
a  cutaway,  with  a  derby  hat  in  his  hand,  gazing  with 
rapture  into  the  face  of  the  father's  spirit  in  a  long 
sack-coat  holding  his  marble  bowler  elegantly  away 

32 


ASHORE    AT    GENOA 

from  his  side,  if  I  remember  rightly.  But  here  the 
fact  wanted  the  basis  of  simplicity  so  strong  in  the 
other  scene;  in  the  mixture  of  the  real  and  the  ideal 
the  group  was  romanticistic. 

There  are  innumerable  other  portrait  figures  and 
busts  in  which  the  civic  and  social  hour  is  expressed. 
The  women's  hair  is  dressed  in  this  fashionable  way  or 
that;  the  men's  beards  are  cut  in  conformity  to  the 
fashion  or  the  personal  preference  in  side  whiskers 
or  mustache  or  imperial  or  goatee;  and  their  bronze 
or  marble  faces  convey  the  contemporary  character  of 
aristocrat  or  bourgeois  or  politician  or  professional. 
I  do  not  know  just  what  the  reader  would  expect  me 
to  say  in  defence  of  the  full-length  figure  of  a  lady 
in  decollete  and  trained  evening  dress,  who  enters 
from  the  tomb  toward  the  spectator  as  if  she  were 
coming  into  a  drawing-room  after  dinner.  She  is  very 
beautiful,  but  she  is  no  longer  very  young,  and  the 
bare  arms,  which  hang  gracefully  at  her  side,  respond 
to  an  intimation  of  embonpoint  in  the  figure,  with  a 
slightly  flabby  over-largeness  where  they  lose  them 
selves  in  the  ample  shoulders.  Whether  this  figure 
is  the  fancy  of  the  sorrowing  husband  or  the  caprice 
of  the  defunct  herself,  who  wished  to  be  shown  to  after- 
time  as  she  hoped  she  looked  in  the  past,  I  do  not 
know;  but  I  had  the  same  difficulty  with  it  as  I  had 
with  that  father  and  son ;  it  was  romanticistic.  Wholly 
realistic  and  rightly  actual  was  that  figure  of  an  old 
woman  who  is  said  to  have  put  by  all  her  savings  from 
the  grocery  business  that  she  might  appear  properly  in 
the  Campo  Santo,  and  who  is  shown  there  short  and 
stout  and  common,  in  her  ill-fitting  best  dress,  but 
motherly  and  kind  and  of  an  undeniable  and  touching 
dignity. 

If  I  am  giving  the  reader  the  impression  that  I  went 
3  33 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

to  the  Cainpo  Santo  in  my  last  stop  at  Genoa,  I  am 
deceiving  him;  I  record  here  the  memories  of  four 
years  ago.  I  did  not  revisit  the  place,  but  I  should 
like  to  see  it  again,  if  only  to  revive  my  recollections 
of  its  unique  Interest.  I  did  really  revisit  the  Pal- 
lavicini-Durazzo  palace,  and  there  revived  the  pleasure 
I  had  known  before  in  its  wonderful  Van  Dycks.  Most 
wonderful  was  and  will  always  be  the  "  Boy  in  White," 
the  little  serene  princeling,  whoever  he  was,  in  whom 
the  painter  has  fixed  forever  a  bewitching  mood  and 
moment  of  childhood.  "  The  Mother  with  two  Chil 
dren  "  is  very  well  and  self-evidently  true  to  per 
sonality  and  period  and  position;  but,  after  all,  she 
is  nothing  beside  that  "  Boy  in  White,"  though  she 
and  her  children  are  otherwise  so  wonderful.  Now 
that  I  speak  of  her,  however,  she  rather  grows  upon 
my  recollection  as  a  woman  greater  than  her  great 
world  and  proudly  weary  of  it. 

She  was  a  lady  of  that  very  patrician  house  whose 
palace,  in  its  cold  grandeur  and  splendor,  renews  at 
once  all  one's  faded  or  fading  sense  of  the  commercial 
past  of  Italy,  when  her  greatest  merchants  were  her 
greatest  nobles  and  dwelt  in  magnificence  unparalleled 
yet  since  Rome  began  to  be  old.  Genoa,  Venice,  Pisa, 
Florence,  what  state  their  business  men  housed  them 
selves  in  and  environed  themselves  with!  Their  pal 
aces  by  the  hundreds  were  such  as  only  the  public 
edifices  of  our  less  simple  State  capitols  could  equal 
in  size  and  not  surpass  in  cost.  Their  folie  des  gran 
deurs  realized  illusions  in  architecture,  in  sculpture,  and 
in  painting  which  the  assembled  and  concentrated  feats 
of  those  arts  all  the  way  up  and  down  Fifth  Avenue, 
and  in  the  millionaire  blocks  eastward  could  not  pro 
duce  the  likeness  of.  We  have  the  same  madness  in 
our  brains;  we  have  even  a  Roman  megalomania,  but 

34 


TYPICAL    MONUMENT    IN    THE    CAMPO    SANTO 


OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


ASHORE    AT    GENOA 

the  effect  of  it  in  Chicago  or  Pittsburg  or  Philadelphia 
or  'New  York  has  not  yet  got  beyond  a  ducal  or  a 
princely  son-in-law.  The  splendors  of  such  alliances 
have  still  to  take  substantial  form  in  a  single  instance 
worthy  to  compare  with  a  thoiisand  instances  in  the 
commercial  republics  of  Italy.  This  does  not  mean 
that  our  rich  people  have  not  so  much  money  as  the 
Italians  of  the  Renaissance,  but  that  perhaps  in  their 
folie  des  grandeurs  they  are  a  different  kind  of  mad 
men  ;  it  means  also  that  land  and  labor  are  dearer  posi 
tively  and  comparatively  with  us,  and  that  our  pork- 
packing  or  stock-broking  princes  prefer  to  spend  on 
comfort  rather  than  size  in  their  houses,  and  do  not 
like  the  cold  feet  which  the  merchant  princes  of  Italy 
must  have  had  from  generation  to  generation.  I  shall 
always  be  sorry  I  did  not  wear  arctics  when  I  went  to 
the  Pallavicini-Durazzo  palace,  and  I  strongly  urge 
the  reader  to  do  so  when  he  goes. 

He  will  not  so  much  need  them  out-of-doors  in  a 
Genoese  January,  unless  a  tramontana  is  blowing,  and 
there  was  none  on  our  half-day.  But  in  any  case  we 
did  not  walk.  We  selected  the  best-looking  cab-horse 
we  could  find,  and  he  turned  out  better  than  his  driver, 
who  asked  a  fabulous  price  by  the  hour.  We  obliged 
him  to  show  his  tariff,  when  his  wickedness  was  ap 
parent  from  the  printed  rates.  He  explained  that  the 
part  we  were  looking  at  was  obsolete,  and  he  showed 
us  another  part,  which  was  really  for  drives  outside 
the  city;  but  we  agreed  to  pay  it,  and  set  out  hoping 
for  good  behavior  from  him  that  would  make  up  the 
difference.  rAgain  we  were  deceived;  at  the  end  he 
demanded  a  franc  beyond  even  his  unnatural  fare.  I 
urged  that  one  should  be  reasonable ;  but  he  seemed  to 
think  not,  and  to  avoid  controversy  I  paid  the  extor 
tionate  franc.  I  remembered  that  just  a  month  before, 

35 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

in  New  York,  I  had  paid  an  extortionate  dollar  in  like 
circumstances. 

Nevertheless,  that  franc  above  and  beyond  the  stip 
ulated  extortion  impoverished  me,  and  when  we 
came  to  take  a  rowboat  back  to  our  steamer  I  beat  the 
boatman  down  cruelly,  mercilessly.  He  was  a  poor, 
lean  little  man,  with  rather  a  superannuated  boat,  and 
he  labored  harder  at  the  oar  than  I  could  bear  to  see 
without  noting  his  exertion  to  him.  This  was  fatal; 
instantly  he  owned  that  I  was  right,  and  he  confessed, 
moreover,  that  he  was  the  father  of  a  family,  and  that 
some  of  his  children  were  then  suffering  from  sickness 
as  well  as  want.  What  could  one  do  but  make  the 
fare  up  to  the  first  demand  of  three  francs  after  having 
got  the  price  down  to  one  and  a  half  ?  At  the  time  it 
seemed  to  me  that  I  was  somehow  by  this  means  get 
ting  the  better  of  the  cabman  who  had  obliged  me  to 
pay  a  franc  more  than  his  stipulated  extortion,  but 
I  do  not  now  hope  to  make  it  appear  so  to  the  reader. 


IV 
NAPLES    AND    HER    JOYFUL   NOISE 

WE  heard  the  joyful  noise  of  Naples  as  soon  as  our 
steamer  came  to  anchor  within  the  moles  whose  rigid 
lines  perhaps  disfigure  her  famous  bay,  while  they 
render  her  harbor  so  secure.  The  noise  first  rose  to 
us,  hanging  over  the  guard,  and  trying  to  get  phrases 
for  the  glory  of  her  sea  and  sky  and  mountains  and 
monuments,  from  a  boat  which  seemed  to  have  been 
keeping  abreast  of  us  ever  since  we  had  slowed  up. 
It  was  not  a  large  boat,  but  it  managed  to  contain  two 
men  with  mandolins,  a  mother  of  a  family  with  a 
guitar,  and  a  young  girl  with  an  alternate  tambourine 
and  umbrella.  The  last  instrument  was  inverted  to 
catch  the  coins,  such  as  they  were,  which  the  passengers 
flung  down  to  the  minstrels  for  their  repetitions  of 
"  Santa  Lucia,"  "  Funicoli-Funicola,"  "  II  Cacciatore," 
and  other  popular  Neapolitan  airs,  such  as  "  John 
Brown's  Body  "  and  "  In  the  Bowery."  To  the  songs 
that  had  a  waltz  movement  the  mother  of  a  family 
performed  a  restricted  dance,  at  some  risk  of  falling 
overboard,  while  she  smiled  radiantly  up  at  us,  as,  in 
fact,  they  all  did,  except  the  young  girl,  who  had  to 
play  simultaneously  on  her  tambourine  and  her  in 
verted  umbrella,  and  seemed  careworn.  Her  anxiety 
visibly  deepened  to  despair  when  she  missed  a  shilling, 
which  must  have  looked  as  large  to  her  as  a  full  moon 

as  it  sank  slowly  down  into  the  sea. 

37 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

But  her  despair  did  not  last  long ;  nothing  lasts  long 
I  in  Naples  except  the  joyful  noise,  which  is  incessant 
and  perpetual,  and  which  seems  the  expression  of  the 
universal  temperament  in  both  man  and  beast.  Our 
good-fortune  placed  us  in  a  hotel  fronting  the  famous 
Castel  delP  Ovo,  across  a  little  space  of  land  and  water, 
and  we  could  hear,  late  and  early,  the  cackling  and 
crowing  of  the  chickens  which  have  replaced  the  hap 
less  prisoners  of  other  days  in  that  fortress.  At  times 
the  voices  of  the  hens  were  lifted  in  a  choral  of  self- 
praise,  as  if  they  had  among  them  just  laid  the  mighty 
structure  which  takes  its  name  from  its  resemblance 
to  the  egg  they  ordinarily  produce.  In  other  lands 
the  peculiar  note  of  the  donkey  is  not  thought  very 
melodious,  but  in  Naples  before  it  can  fade  away  it  is 
caught  up  in  the  general  orchestration  and  ceases  in 
music.  The  cabmen  at  our  corner,  lying  in  wait  by 
scores  for  the  strangers  whom  it  is  their  convention 
to  suppose  ignorant  of  their  want  of  a  carriage,  quar 
relled  rhythmically  with  one  another;  the  mendicants, 
lying  everywhere  in  wait  for  charity,  murmured  a 
modulated  appeal;  if  you  heard  shouts  or  yells  afar 
off  they  died  upon  your  ear  in  a  strain  of  melody 
at  the  moment  when  they  were  lifted  highest.  I 
am  aware  of  seeming  to  burlesque  the  operatic  fact 
which  every  one  must  have  noticed  in  Naples;  and  I 
will  not  say  that  the  neglected  or  affronted  babe,  or 
the  trodden  dog,  is  as  tuneful  as  the  midnight  cat 
there,  but  only  that  they  approach  it  in  the  prevailing 
tendency  of  all  the  local  discords  to  soften  and  lose 
themselves  in  the  general  unison.  This  embraces  the 
clatter  of  the  cabs,  which  are  seldom  less  than  fifty 
years  old,  and  of  a  looseness  in  all  their  joints  re 
sponsive  to  their  effect  of  dusty  decrepitude.  Their 
clatter  penetrates  the  volumed  tread  of  the  myriad  feet 

38 


NAPLES  AND  HER  JOYFUL  NOISE 

in  a  city  where,  if  you  did  not  see  all  sorts  of  people 
driving,  you  would  say  the  whole  population  walked. 
Above  the  manifold  noises  gayly  springing  to  the  sky 
spreads  and  swims  the  clangor  of  the  church-bells  and 
holds  the  terrestrial  uproar  in  immeasurable  solution. 

It  would  be  rash  to  say  that  the  whole  population  of 
Naples  is  always  in  the  street,  for  if  you  look  into  the 
shops  or  cafes,  or,  I  dare  say,  the  houses,  you  will  find 
them  quite  full ;  but  the  general  statement  verifies  itself 
7  almost  tiresomely  in  its  agreement  with  what  everybody 
has  always  said  of  Naples.  It  is  so  quite  what  you 
expect  that  if  you  could  you  would  turn  away  in  satiety, 
especially  from  the  swarming  life  of  the  poor,  which 
seems  to  have  no  concealments  from  the  public,  but 
frankly  works  at  all  the  trades  and  arts  that  can  be 
carried  on  out  -  of  -  doors ;  cooks,  eats,  laughs,  cries, 
sleeps,  wakes,  makes  love,  quarrels,  scolds,  does  every 
thing  but  wash  itself — clothes  enough  it  washes  for 
other  people's  life.  There  is  a  reason  for  this  in  the 
fact  that  in  bad  weather  at  Naples  it  is  cold  and  dark 
and  damp  in-doors,  and  in  fine  so  bright  and  warm 
and  charming  without  that  there  is  really  no  choice. 
Then  there  is  the  expansive  temperament,  which  if  it 
were  shut  up  would  probably  be  much  more  explosive 
than  it  is  now.  'As  it  is,  it  vents  itself  in  volleyed 
detonations  and  scattered  shots  which  language  can 
give  no  sense  of. 

For  the  true  sense  of  it  you  must  go  to  Naples,  and 
then  you  will  never  lose  the  sense  of  it.  I  had  not  been 
there  since  1864,  but  when  I  woke  up  the  morning 
after  my  arrival,  and  heard  the  chickens  cackling  in 
the  Castel  dell*  Ovo,  and  the  donkeys  braying,  and  the 
cab-drivers  quarrelling,  and  the  cries  of  the  street 
vendors,  and  the  dogs  barking,  and  the  children  wail 
ing,  and  their  mothers  scolding,  and  the  clatter  of 

39 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

wheels  and  hoops  and  feet,  and  all  that  mighty  harmony 
of  the  joyful  Neapolitan  noises,  it  seemed  to  me  that  it 
'  was  the  first  morning  after  my  first  arrival,  and  I  was 
still  only  twenty-seven  years  old.  As  soon  as  possible, 
when  the  short  but  sweet  Vincenzo  had  brought  up  my 
breakfast  of  tea  and  bread-and-butter  and  honey  (to 
which  iny  appetite  turned  from  the  gross  superabun 
dance  of  the  steamer's  breakfasts  with  instant  acqui 
escence),  and  announced  with  a  smile  as  liberal  as  the 
sunshine  that  it  was  a  fine  day,  I  went  out  for  those 
v?  impressions  which  I  had  better  make  over  to  the  reader 
in  their  original  disorder.  Vesuvius,  which  was  silver 
veiled  the  day  before,  was  now  of  a  soft,  smoky  white, 
and  the  sea,  of  a  milky  blue,  swam  round  the  shore 
and  out  to  every  dim  island  and  low  cape  and  cliffy 
promontory.  The  street  was  full  of  people  on  foot 
and  in  trolleys  and  cabs  and  donkey  pleasure-carts, 
and  the  familiar  teasing  of  cabmen  and  peddlers  and 
beggars  began  with  my  first  steps  toward  what  I  re 
membered  as  the  Toledo,  but  what  now  called  itself, 
with  the  moderner  Italian  patriotism,  the  Via  Roma. 
The  sole  poetic  novelty  of  my  experience  was  in  my 
being  offered  loaves  of  bread  which,  when  I  bought 
them,  would  be  given  to  the  poor,  in  honor  of  what 
saint's  day  I  did  not  learn.  But  it  was  all  charming; 
even  the  inattention  of  the  young  woman  over  the  book- 
counter  was  charming,  since  it  was  a  condition  of 
her  flirtation  with  the  far  younger  man  beside  me 
who  wanted  something  far  more  interesting  from  her 
than  any  brief  sketch  of  the  history  of  Naples,  in  either 
English  or  Italian  or  French  or,  at  the  worst,  German. 
She  was  very  pretty,  though  rather  powdered,  and  when 
the  young  man  went  away  she  was  sympathetically  re 
gretful  to  me  that  there  was  no  such  sketch,  in  place 

of  which  she  offered  me  several  large  histories  in  more 

40 


NAPLES  AND  HER  JOYFUL  NOISE 

or  less  volumes.  But  why  should  I  have  wanted  a 
history  of  Naples  when  I  had  Naples  itself?  It  was 
like  wanting  a  photograph  when  you  have  the  original. 
Had  I  not  just  come  through  the  splendid  Piazza  San 
Ferdinando,  with  the  nobly  arcaded  church  on  one 
hand  and  the  many-statued  royal  palace  on  the  other, 
and  between  them  a  lake  of  mellow  sunshine,  as  warm 
as  ours  in  June  ? 

What  I  found  Naples  and  the  Neapolitans  in  1908 
I  had  found  them  in  1864,  and  Mr.  Gray  (as  he  of 
the  "  Elegy  "  used  to  be  called  on  his  title-pages)  found 
them  in  1740.  "  The  streets,"  he  wrote  home  to  his 
mother,  "  are  one  continued  market,  and  thronged  with 
populace  so  much  that  a  coach  can  hardly  pass.  The 
common  sort  are  a  jolly,  lively  kind  of  animals,  more 
industrious  than  Italians  usually  are;  they  work  till 
evening;  then  they  take  their  lute  or  guitar  (for  they 
all  play)  and  walk  about  the  city  or  upon  the  sea 
shore  with  it,  to  enjoy  the  fresco."  There  was,  in  fact, 
a  bold  gayety  in  the  aspect  of  the  city,  without  the 
refinement  which  you  do  not  begin  to  feel  till  you  get 
into  North  Italy.  When  I  came  upon  church  after 
church,  with  its  facade  of  Spanish  baroque,  I  lamented 
the  want  of  Gothic  delicacy  and  beauty,  but  I  was 
consoled  abundantly  later  in  the  churches  antedating 
the  Spanish  domination.  I  had  no  reason,  such  as 
travellers  give  for  hating  places,  to  be  dissatisfied  with 
Naples  in  any  way.  I  had  been  warned  that  the  cus 
toms  officers  were  terrible  there,  and  that  I  might  be 
kept  hours  with  my  baggage.  But  the  inspector,  after 
the  politest  demand  for  a  declaration  of  tobacco,  order 
ed  only  a  small  valise,  the  Benjamin  of  its  tribe,  opened 
and  then  closed  untouched;  and  his  courteous  for 
bearance,  acknowledged  later  through  the  hotel  porter, 
cost  me  but  a  dollar.  The  hotel  itself  was  inexpressibly 

41 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

better  in  lighting,  heating,  service,  and  table  than  any 
New  York  hotel  at  twice  the  money — in  fact,  no  money 
could  buy  the  like  with  us  at  any  hotel  I  know  of;  but 
this  is  a  theme  which  I  hope  to  treat  more  fully  here 
after.  It  is  true  that  the  streets  of  Naples  are  very 
long  and  rather  narrow  and  pretty  crooked,  and  full 
of  a  damp  cold  that  no  sunlight  seems  ever  to  hunt 
out  of  them;  but  then  they  are  seldom  ironed  down 
with  trolley-tracks;  the  cabs  feel  their  way  among  the 
swarming  crowds  with  warning  voices  and  smacking 
whips;  even  the  prepotent  automobile  shows  some  ten 
derness  for  human  life  and  limb,  and  proceeds  still 
more  cautiously  than  the  cabs  and  carts — in  fact,  I 
thought  I  saw  recurrent  proofs  of  that  respect  for  the 
average  man  which  seems  the  characteristic  note  of 
Italian  liberty;  and  this  belief  of  mine,  bred  of  my 
first  observations  in  Naples,  did  not,  after  twelve  weeks 
in  Italy,  prove  an  illusion.  If  it  is  not  the  equality 
we  fancy  ourselves  having,  it  is  rather  more  fraternity 
in  effect. 

The  failure  of  other  researches  for  that  sketch  of 
^Neapolitan  history  left  me  in  the  final  ignorance  which 
I  must  share  with  the  reader ;  but  my  inquiries  brought 
me  prompt  knowledge  of  one  of  those  charming  feat 
ures  in  which  the  Italian  cities  excel,  if  they  are  not 
unique.  I  remember  too  vaguely  the  Galleria,  as  they 
call  the  beautiful  glazed  arcade  of  Milan,  to  be  sure 
that  it  is  finer  than  the  Galleria  at  Naples,  but  I  am 
sure  this  is  finer  than  that  at  Genoa,  with  which,  how 
ever,  I  know  nothing  in  other  cities  to  compare.  The 
Neapolitan  gallery,  wider  than  any  avenue  of  the  place, 
branching  in  the  form  of  a  Greek  cross  to  four  prin 
cipal  streets,  is  lighted  by  its  roof  of  glass,  and  a  hun 
dred  brilliant  shops  and  cafes  spread  their  business  and 
leisure  over  its  marble  floor.  Nothing  could  be  archi- 

42 


OUT-DOOR    LIFE    IN    OLD    NAPLES 


NAPLES  AND  HER  JOYEUL  NOISE 

tecturally  more  cheerful,  and,  if  it  were  not  too  hot  in 
summer,  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  its  adaptation  to 
our  year,  for  it  could  be  easily  closed  against  the  winter 
by  great  portals,  and  at  other  seasons  would  give  that 
out-door  expansion  which  in  Latin  countries  hospitably 
offers  the  spectacle  of  pleasant  eating  and  drinking  to 
people  who  have  nothing  to  eat  and  drink.  These 
spectators  could  be  kept  at  a  distance  with  us  by  porters 
at  the  entrances,  while  they  would  not  be  altogether 
deprived  of  the  gratifying  glimpses. 

I  do  not  know  whether  poverty  avails  itself  of  its 
privileges  by  visiting  the  Neapolitan  gallery ;  but  prob 
ably,  like  poverty  elsewhere,  it  is  too  much  interested  by 
the  drama  of  life  in  its  own  quarter  ever  willingly  to 
leave  it.  Poverty  is  very  conservative,  for  reasons  more 
than  one;  its  quarter  in  Naples  is  the  oldest,  and  was  , 
the  most  responsive  to  our  recollections  of  the  Naples  v 
of  1864.  Overhead  the  houses  tower  and  beetle  with 
their  balconies  and  bulging  casements,  shutting  the 
sun,  except  at  noon,  from  the  squalor  below,  where 
the  varied  dwellers  bargain  and  battle  and  ply  their 
different  trades,  bringing  their  work  from  the  dusk 
of  cavernous  shops  to  their  doorways  for  the  advantage 
of  the  prevailing  twilight.  Carpentry  and  tailoring 
and  painting  and  plumbing,  locksmithing  and  copper- 
smithing  go  on  there,  touching  elbows  with  frying  and 
feeding,  and  the  vending  of  all  the  strange  and  hideous 
forms  of  flesh,  fish,  and  fowl.  If  you  wish  to  know 
how  much  the  tentacle  of  a  small  polyp  is  worth  you 
may  chance  to  see  a  cent  pass  for  it  from  the  crone 
who  buys  to  the  boy  who  sells  it  smoking  from  the 
kettle;  but  the  price  of  cooked  cabbage  or  pumpkin 
must  remain  a  mystery,  along  with  that  of  many  raw 
vegetables  and  the  more  revolting  viscera  of  the  less- 
recognizable  animals. 

43 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

The  poor  people  worming  in  and  out  around  your 
cab  are  very  patient  of  your  progress  over  the  terrible 
floor  of  their  crooked  thoroughfare,  perhaps  because 
they  reciprocate  your  curiosity,  and  perhaps  because 
they  are  very  amiable  and  not  very  sensitive.  They 
are  not  always  crowded  into  these  dismal  chasms;  their 
quarter  expands  here  and  there  into  market-places,  'like 
the  fish-market  where  the  uprising  of  the  fisherman 
Masaniello  against  the  Spaniards  fitly  took  place ;  and 
the  Jewish  market-place,  where  the  poor  young  Corra- 
dino,  last  of  the  imperial  Hohenstaufen  line,  was  less 
appropriately  beheaded  by  the  Angevines.  The  open 
spaces  are  not  less  loathsome  than  the  reeking  alleys, 
but  if  you  have  the  intelligent  guide  we  had  you  ap 
proach  them  through  the  triumphal  arch  by  which 
Charles  V.  entered  Naples,  and  that  is  something. 
Yet  we  will  now  talk  less  of  the  emperor  than  of  the 
guide,  who  appealed  more  to  my  sympathy. 

He  had  been  six  years  in  America,  which  he  adored, 
because,  he  said,  he  had  got  work  and  earned  his  living 
there  the  very  day  he  landed.  That  was  in  Boston, 
where  he  turned  his  hand  first  to  one  thing  and  then 
another,  and  came  away  at  last  through  some  call  home, 
honoring  and  loving  the  Americans  as  the  kindest,  the 
noblest,  the  friendliest  people  in  the  world.  I  tried, 
politely,  to  persuade  him  that  we  were  not  all  of  us 
all  he  thought  us,  but  he  would  not  yield,  and  at  one 
place  he  generously  claimed  a  pre-eminence  in  wicked 
ness  for  his  fellow-Neapolitans.  That  was  when  we 
came  to  a  vast,  sorrowful  prison,  from  which  an  iron 
cage  projected  into  the  street.  Around  this  cage 
wretched  women  and  children  and  old  men  clustered 
till  the  prisoners  dear  to  them  were  let  into  it  from 
the  jail  and  allowed  to  speak  with  them.  The  scene 

was  as  public  as  all  of  life  and  death  is  in  Naples, 

44 


NAPLES  AND  HER  JOYFUL  NOISE 

and  the  publicity  seemed  to  give  it  peculiar  sadness, 
which  I  noted  to  our  guide.  He  owned  its  pathos; 
"  but/'  he  said,  "  you  know  we  have  a  terrible  class 
of  people  here  in  Naples."  I  protested  that  there  were 
terrible  classes  of  people  everywhere,  even  in  America. 
He  would  not  consent  entirely,  but  in  partly  convinc 
ing  each  other  we  became  better  friends.  He  had  a 
large  black  mustache  and  gentle  black  eyes,  and  he 
spoke  very  fair  English,  which,  when  he  wished  to  be 
most  impressive,  he  dropped  and  used  a  very  literary 
Italian  instead.  He  showed  us  where  he  lived,  on  a 
hill-top  back  of  our  gardened  quay,  and  said  that  he 
paid  twelve  dollars  a  month  for  a  tenement  of  five 
rooms  there.  Schooling  is  compulsory  in  Naples,  but 
he  sends  his  boy  willingly,  and  has  him  especially 
study  English  as  the  best  provision  he  can  make  for 
him — as  heir  of  his  own  calling  of  cicerone,  perhaps. 
He  has  a  little  farm  at  Ravello,  which  he  tills 
when  it  is  past  the  season  for  cultivating  foreigners 
in  Naples;  he  expects  to  spend  his  old  age  there;  and 
I  thought  it  not  a  bad  lookout.  He  was  perfectly  well- 
mannered,  and  at  a  hotel  where  we  stopped  for  tea  he 
took  his  coffee  at  our  table  unbidden,  like  any  Ameri 
can  fellow-man.  He  and  the  landlord  had  their  joke 
together,  the  landlord  warning  me  against  him  in  Eng 
lish  as  "  very  bad  man,"  and  clapping  him  affectionate 
ly  on  the  shoulder  to  emphasize  the  irony.  We  did 
not  demand  too  much  social  information  of  him;  all 
the  more  we  valued  the  gratuitous  fact  that  the  Nea 
politan  nobles  were  now  rather  poor,  because  they  pre 
ferred  a  life  of  pleasure  to  a  life  of  business.  I  could 
have  told  him  that  the  American  nobles  were  increas 
ingly  like  them  in  their  love  of  pleasure,  but  I  would 
not  have  known  how  to  explain  that  they  were  not 
poor  also.  He  was  himself  a  moderate  in  politics,  but 

45 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

he  told  us,  what  seems  to  be  the  fact  everywhere  in 
Italy,  that  singly  the  largest  party  in  Naples  is  the 
Socialist  party. 

He  went  with  me  first  one  day  to  the  beautiful  old 
Church  of  Santa  Chiara,to  show  me  the  Angevine  tombs 
there,  in  which  I  satisfied  a  secret,  lingering  love  for 
the  Gothic;  and  then  to  the  cathedral,  where  the  sac 
ristan  showed  us  everything  but  the  blood  of  St.  Jan- 
narius,  perhaps  because  it  was  not  then  in  the  act 
of  liquefying;  but  I  am  thankful  to  say  I  saw  one 
of  his  finger-bones.  My  guide  had  made  me  observe 
how  several  of  the  churches  on  the  way  to  this  were 
built  on  the  sites  and  of  the  remnants  of  pagan  tem 
ples,  and  he  summoned  the  world-old  sacristan  of  St. 
Januarius  to  show  us  evidences  of  a  rival  antiquity 
in  the  crypt ;  for  it  had  begun  as  a  temple  of  Neptune. 
The  sacristan  practically  lived  in  those  depths  and  the 
chill  sanctuary  above  them,  and  he  was  so  full  of 
rheumatism  that  you  could  almost  hear  it  creak  as 
he  walked;  yet  he  was  a  cheerful  sage,  and  satisfied 
with  the  fee  which  my  guide  gave  him  and  which  he 
made  small,  as  he  explained,  that  the  sacristan  might 
not  be  discontented  with  future  largesse.  I  need  not 
say  that  each  church  we  visited  had  its  tutelary  beggar, 
and  that  my  happy  youth  came  back  to  me  in  the  blind 
ness  of  one,  or  the  mutilation  of  another,  or  the  hag 
gish  wrinkles  of  a  third.  At  Santa  Chiara  I  could  not 
at  first  make  out  what  it  was  which  caused  my  heart 
to  rejoice  so;  but  then  I  found  that  it  was  because  the 
church  was  closed,  and  we  had  to  go  and  dig  a  torpid 
monk  out  of  his  crevice  in  a  cold,  many-storied  cliff 
near  by,  and  get  him  to  come  and  open  it,  just  as  I 
used,  with  the  help  of  neighbors,  to  do  in  the  past. 

Our  day  ended  at  sunset — a  sunset  of  watermelon 
red — with  a  visit  to  the  Castel  Nuovo,  where  my  guide 

46 


NAPLES  AND  HER  JOYFUL  NOISE 

found  himself  at  home  with  the  garrison,  because,  as 
he  explained,  he  had  served  his  term  as  a  soldier.  He 
was  the  born  friend  of  the  custodian  of  the  castle 
church,  which  was  the  most  comfortable  church  for 
warmth  we  had  visited,  and  to  which  we  entered  by  the 
bronze  gates  of  the  triumphal  arch  raised  in  honor  of 
the  Aragonese  victory  over  the  Angevines  in  1442, 
when  this  New  Castle  was  newer  than  it  is  now.  The 
bronze  gates  record  in  bas-relief  the  battles  between  the 
French  and  Spanish  powers  in  their  quarrel  over  the 
people  one  or  other  must  make  its  prey;  but  whether 
it  was  to  the  greater  advantage  of  the  Neapolitans  to 
be  battened  on  by  the  house  of  Aragon  and  then  that 
of  Bourbon  for  the  next  six  hundred  years  after  the 
Angevines  had  retired  from  the  banquet  is  prob 
lematical.  History  is  a  very  baffling  study,  and  one 
may  be  well  content  to  know  little  or  nothing  about 
it.  I  knew  so  little  or  had  forgotten  so  much  that  I 
scarcely  deserved  to  be  taken  down  into  the  crypt  of 
this  church  and  shown  the  skeletons  of  four  conspi 
rators  for  Anjou  whom  Aragon  had  put  to  death — 
two  laymen  and  an  archbishop  by  beheading,  and  a 
woman  by  dividing  crosswise  into  thirds.  The  skele 
tons  lay  in  their  tattered  and  dusty  shrouds,  and  I 
suppose  were  authentic  enough;  but  I  had  met  them, 
poor  things,  too  late  in  my  life  to  wish  for  their  further 
acquaintance.  Once  I  could  have  exulted  to  search  out 
./  their  story  and  make  much  of  it;  but  now  I  must 
leave  it  to  the  reader's  imagination,  along  with  most 
other  facts  of  my  observation  in  Naples. 

I  was  at  some  pains  to  look  up  the  traces  of  my  lost 
youth  there,  and  if  I  could  have  found  more  of  them 
no  doubt  I  should  have  been  more  interested  in  these 
skeletons.  For  forty-odd  years  I  had  remembered  the 
prodigious  picturesqueness  of  certain  streets  branching 

47 


KOHAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEKS 

from  a  busy  avenue  and  ascending  to  uplands  above 
by  stately  successions  of  steps.  When  I  demanded 
these  of  my  guide,  he  promptly  satisfied  me,  and  in  a 
few  moments,  there  in  the  Chiaja,  we  stood  at  the  foot 
of  such  a  public  staircase.  I  had  no  wish  to  climb  it, 
but  I  found  it  more  charming  even  than  I  remem 
bered.  All  the  way  to  the  top  it  was  banked  on  either 
side  with  glowing  masses  of  flowers  and  fruits  and  the 
spectacular  vegetables  of  the  South,  and  between  these 
there  were  series  of  people,  whom  I  tacitly  delegated 
to  make  the  ascent  for  me,  passing  the  groups  bargain 
ing  at  the  stalls.  Nothing  could  have  been  better; 
nothing  that  I  think  of  is  half  so  well  in  New  York, 
where  the  markets  are  on  that  dead  level  which  in  the 
social  structure  those  above  it  abhor;  though  there  are 
places  on  the  East  River  where  we  might  easily  have 
inclined  markets. 

Other  associations  of  that  far  past  awoke  with  my 
identification  of  the  hotel  where  we  had  stayed  at  the 
end  of  the  Villa  Nazionale.  In  those  days  the  hotel 
was  called,  in  appeal  to  our  patriotism,  more  flattered 
Ithen  than  now  in  Europe,  Hotel  "Washington;  but  it 
is  to-day  a  mere  pension,  though  it  looks  over  the  same 
length  of  palm  -  shaded,  statue  -  peopled  garden.  The 
palms  were  larger  than  I  remembered  them,  and  the 
statues  had  grown  up  and  seemed  to  have  had  large 
families  since  my  day;  but  the  lovely  sea  was  the 
same,  with  all  the  mural  decorations  of  the  skyey 
horizons  beyond,  dim  precipices  and  dreamy  island 
tops,  and  the  dozing  Vesuvius  mistakable  for  any  of 
them.  ;At  one  place  there  was  a  file  of  fishermen,  in 
cluding  a  fisherwoman,  drawing  their  net  by  means  of 
a  rope  carried  across  the  carriage-way  from  the  sea 
wall,  with  a  splendid  show  of  their  black  eyes  and 

white  teeth  and  swarthy,  bare  legs,  and  always  there 

48 


UP-STAIRS    STREET    IN    OLD    NAPLES 


•Sft, 


NAPLES  AND  HER  JOYFUL  NOISE 

were  beggars,  both,  of  those  who  frankly  begged  and 
those  who  importuned  with  postal-cards.  This  terrible 
traffic  pervades  all  southern  Europe,  and  everywhere 
pesters  the  meeting  traveller  with  undesired  bargains. 
In  its  presence  it  is  almost  impossible  to  fit  a  scene 
with  the  apposite  phrase;  and  yet  one  must  own  that 
it  has  its  rights.  What  would  those  boys  do  if  they 
did  not  sell,  or  fail  to  sell,  postal-cards.  It  is  another 
aspect  of  the  labor  problem,  so  many-faced  in  our 
time.  Would  it  be  better  that  they  should  take  to 
open  mendicancy,  or  try  to  win  the  soft  American, 
heart  with  such  acquired  slang  as  "  Skiddoo  to  twenty- 
three  "  ?  One  who  had  no  postal-cards  had  English 
enough  to  say  he  would  go  away  for  a  penny;  it  was 
his  price,  and  I  did  not  see  how  he  could  take  less; 
when  he  was  reproached  by  a  citizen  of  uncommon 
austerity  for  his  shameless  annoyance  of  strangers,  I 
could  not  see  that  he  looked  abashed — in  fact,  he  went 
away  singing.  He  did  not  take  with  him  the  divine 
beauty  of  the  afternoon  light  on  the  sea  and  moun 
tains;  and,  if  he  was  satisfied,  we  were  content  with 
our  bargain. 

In  fact,  it  would  be  impossible  to  exaggerate  in  the 
praise  of  that  incomparable  environment.  At  every 
hour  of  the  day,  and,  for  all  I  know,  the  night,  it  had 
a  varying  beauty  and  a  constant  loveliness.  Six  days 
out  of  the  week  of  our  stay  the  sunshine  was  glorious, 
and  five  days  of  at  least  a  May  or  September  warmth ; 
and  though  one  day  was  shrill  and  stiff  with  the 
tramontana,  it  was  of  as  glorious  sunshine  as  the  rest. 
The  gale  had  blown  my  window  open  and  chilled  my 
room,  but  with  that  sun  blazing  outside  I  could  not 
believe  in  the  hurricane  which  seemed  to  blow  our  car 
up  the  funicular  railway  when  we  mounted  to  the 
height  where  the  famous  old  Convent  of  San  Martino 

4  49 


EOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

stands,  and  then  blew  us  all  about  the  dust-clouded 
streets  of  that  upland  in  our  search  for  the  right  way 
to  the  monastery.  It  was  worth  more  than  we  suf 
fered  in  finding  it;  for  the  museum  is  a  record  of 
the  most  significant  events  of  Neapolitan  history  from 
the  time  of  the  Spanish  domination  down  to  that  of 
the  Garibaldian  invasion ;  and  the  church  and  corridors 
through  which  the  wind  hustled  us  abound  in  paint 
ings  and  frescos  such  as  one  would  be  willing  to  give 
a  whole  week  of  quiet  weather  to.  I  do  not  know  but  I 
should  like  to  walk  always  in  the  convent  garden,  or 
merely  look  into  it  from  my  window  in  the  cloister 
wall,  and  gossip  with  my  fellow-friars  at  their  win 
dows.  We  should  all  be  ghosts,  of  course,  but  the  more 
easily  could  the  sun  warm  us  through  in  spite  of  the 
tramontana. 

I  do  not  know  that  Naples  is  very  beautiful  in 
certain  phases  in  which  Venice  and  Genoa  are  ex 
cellent.  Those  cities  were  adorned  by  their  sons 
with  palaces  of  an  outlook  worthy  of  their  splen 
dor.  But  in  the  other  Italian  cities  the  homes  of 
her  patricians  were  crowded  into  the  narrow  streets 
where  their  architecture  fails  of  its  due  effect.  It 
is  so  with  them  in  Naples,  and  even  along  the  Villa 
Nazionale,  where  many  palatial  villas  are  set,  they 
seclude  themselves  in  gardens  where  one  fancies  rather 
than  sees  them.  These  are,  in  fact,  sometimes  the 
houses  of  the  richest  bourgeoisie — bankers  and  finan 
ciers — and  the  houses  which  have  names  conspicuous 
in  the  mainly  inglorious  turmoil  of  Neapolitan  his 
tory  help  unnoted  to  darken  the  narrow  and  winding 
ways  of  the  old  city.  A  glimpse  of  a  deep  court  or 
of  a  towering  fagade  is  what  you  get  in  passing,  but  it 
is  to  be  said  of  the  sunless  streets  over  which  they 
gloom  that  they  are  kept  in  a  modern  neatness  beside 

50 


NAPLES  AND  HER  JOYFUL  NOISE 

which  the  dirt  of  New  York  is  mediaeval.  It  is  so  with 
most  other  streets  in  Naples,  except  those  poorest  ones 
where  the  out-door  life  insists  upon  the  most  intimate 
domestic  expression.  Even  such  streets  are  no  worse 
than  our  worst  streets,  and  the  good  streets  are  all 
better  kept  than  our  best. 

I  am  not  sure  that  there  are  even  more  beggars  in 
Naples  than  in  New  York,  though  I  will  own  that  I 
kept  no  count.  In  both  cities  beggary  is  common  v 
enough,  and  I  am  not  noting  it  with  disfavor  in  either, 
for  it  is  one  of  my  heresies  that  comfort  should  be 
constantly  reminded  of  misery  by  the  sight  of  it — com 
fort  is  so  forgetful.  Besides,  in  Italy  charity  costs 
so  little;  a  cent  of  our  money  pays  a  man  for  the 
loss  of  a  leg  or  an  arm ;  two  cents  is  the  compensation 
for  total  blindness;  a  sick  mother  with  a  brood  of 
starving  children  is  richly  rewarded  for  her  pains  with 
a  nickel  worth  four  cents.  Organized  charity  is  not 
absent  in  the  midst  of  such  volunteers  of  poverty;  one 
day,  when  we  thought  we  had  passed  the  last  outpost 
of  want  in  our  drive,  two  Sisters  of  Charity  suddenly 
appeared  with  out-stretched  tin  cups.  Our  driver  did 
not  imagine  our  inexhaustible  benovelence ;  he  drove  on, 
and  before  we  could  bring  him  to  a  halt  the  Sisters  of 
Charity  ran  us  down,  their  black  robes  flying  abroad 
and  their  sweet  faces  flushed  with  the  pursuit.  Upon 
the  whole  it  was  very  humiliating;  we  could  have 
wished  to  offer  our  excuses  and  regrets;  but  our  silver 
seemed  enough,  and  the  gentle  sisters  fell  back  when 
we  had  given  it. 

That  was  while  we  were  driving  toward  Posilipo  for 
the  beauty  of  the  prospect  along  the  sea  and  shore,  and 
for  a  sense  of  which  any  colored  postal-card  will  suffice  ^ 
better  than  the  most  hectic  word-painting.     The  worst 

of  Italy  is  the  superabundance  of  the  riches  it  offers 

51 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

ear  and  eye  and  nose — offers  every  sense — ending  in 
a  glut  of  pleasure.  At  the  point  where  we  descended 
from  our  carriage  to  look  from  the  upland  out  over  the 
vast  hollow  of  land  and  sea  toward  Pozzuoli,  which  is 
so  interesting  as  the  scene  of  Jove's  memorable  strug 
gle  with  the  Titans,  and  just  when  we  were  really 
beginning  to  feel  equal  to  it,  a  company  of  minstrels 
suddenly  burst  upon  us  with  guitars  and  mandolins 
and  comic  songs  much  dramatized,  while  the  immediate 
natives  offered  us  violets  and  other  distracting  flowers. 
In  the  effect,  art  and  nature  combined  to  neutralize 
each  other,  as  they  do  with  us,  for  instance,  in  those 
restaurants  where  they  have  music  during  dinner,  and 
where  you  do  not  know  whether  you  are  eating  the 
chef-d'oeuvre  of  a  cook  or  a  composer. 

It  was  at  the  new  hotel  which  is  evolving  itself 
through  the  repair  of  the  never-finished  and  long-ruined 
Palace  of  Bonn'  Anna,  wife  of  a  Spanish  viceroy  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  that  our  guide  stopped  with  us  for 
that  cup  of  tea  already  mentioned.  We  had  to  climb 
four  flights  of  stairs  for  it  to  the  magnificent  salon 
overlooking  the  finest  postal-card  prospect  in  all  Naples. 
We  lingered  long  upon  it,  in  the  balcony  from  which 
we  could  have  dropped  into  the  sunset  sea  any  coin 
which  we  could  have  brought  ourselves  to  part  with ; 
but  we  had  none  of  the  bad  money  which  had  been  so 
easily  passed  off  upon  us.  This  sort  rather  abounds  in 
Naples,  and  the  traveller  should  watch  not  only  for 
false  francs,  but  for  francs  of  an  obsolete  coinage  which 
you  can  know  by  the  king's  head  having  a  longer  neck 
than  in  the  current  pieces.  At  the  bookseller's  they 
would  not  take  a  perfectly  good  five-franc  piece  be 
cause  it  was  so  old  as  1815 ;  and  what  becomes  of  all 
the  bad  money  one  innocently  takes  for  good?  One 
fraudulent  franc  I  made  a  virtue  of  throwing  away; 

52 


NAPLES  AND  HEK  JOYFUL  NOISE 

but  I  do  not  know  what  I  did  with  a  copper  refused, 
by  a  trolley  conductor  as  counterfeit.  I  could  not  take 
the  affair  seriously,  and  perhaps  I  gave  that  copper  in 
charity. 

As  we  drove  hotelward  through  the  pink  twilight 
we  met  many  carriages  of  people  who  looked  rich  and 
noble,  but  whether  they  were  so  I  do  not  know.  I  only 
know  that  old  ladies  who  regard  the  world  severely 
from  their  coaches  behind  the  backs  of  their  perfectly 
appointed  coachmen  and  footmen  ought  to  be  both, 
and  that  old  gentlemen  who  frown  over  their  white 
mustaches  have  no  right  to  their  looks  if  they  are 
neither.  It  was,  at  any  rate,  the  hour  of  the  fashionable 
drive,  which  included  a  pause  midway  of  the  Villa 
N~azionale  for  the  music  of  the  military  band. 

The  band  plays  near  the  Aquarium,  which  I  hope 
the  reader  will  visit  at  the  earlier  hours  of  the  day. 
Then,  if  he  has  a  passion  for  polyps,  and  wishes  to 
imagine  how  they  could  ingulf  good-sized  ships  in  the 
ages  of  fable,  he  can  see  one  of  the  hideous  things 
float  from  its  torpor  in  the  bottom  of  its  tank,  and  seize 
with  its  hungry  tentacles  the  food  lowered  to  it  by  a 
string.  Still  awfuller  is  it  to  see  it  rise  and  reach  with 
those  prehensile  members,  as  with  the  tails  of  a  multi- 
caudate  ape,  some  rocky  projection  of  its  walls  and 
lurk  fearsomely  into  the  hollow,  and  vanish  there  in  a 
loathly  quiescence.  The  carnivorous  spray  and  bloom 
of  the  deep  -  sea  flowers  amid  which  drowned  men's 
"bones  are  coral  made"  seem  of  one  temperament 
with  the  polyps  as  they  slowly,  slowly  wave  their 
tendrils  and  petals;  but  there  is  amusemlent  if  not 
pleasure  in  store  for  the  traveller  who  turns  from 
them  to  the  company  of  shad  softly  and  continuously 
circling  in  their  tank,  and  regarding  the  spectators 
with  a  surly  dignity  becoming  to  people  in  better  so- 

53 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

ciety  than  others.  One  large  shad,  imaginably  of  very 
old  family  and  independent  property,  sails  at  the  head 
of  several  smaller  shad,  his  flatterers  and  toadies,  who 
try  to  look  like  him.  Mostly  his  expression  is  very 
severe;  hut  in  milder  moments  he  offers  a  perverse 
resemblance  to  some  portraits  of  Washington. 

All  our  days  in  Naples  died  like  dolphins  to  the 
music  which  I  have  tried  to  impart  the  sense  of.  The 
joyful  noises  which  it  was  made  up  of  culminated  for 
us  on  that  evening  when  a  company  of  the  street  and 
boat  musicians  came  into  the  hotel  and  danced  and 
sang  and  played  the  tarantella.  They  were  of  all  ages, 
sexes,  and  bulks,  and  of  divers  operatic  costumes,  but 
they  were  of  one  temperament  only,  which  was  glad 
and  childlike.  They  went  through  their  repertory, 
which  included  a  great  deal  more  than  the  tarantella, 
and  which  we  applauded  with  an  enthusiasm  attested 
by  our  contributions  when  the  tambourine  went  round. 
Then  they  repeated  their  selections,  and  at  the  second 
collection  we  guests  of  the  hotel  repeated  our  con 
tributions,  but  in  a  more  guarded  spirit.  After  the 
second  repetition  the  prettiest  girl  came  round  with 
her  photographs  and  sold  them  at  prices  out  of  all 
reason.  Then  we  became  very  melancholy,  and  began 
to  steal  out  one  by  one.  I  myself  did  not  stay  for  the 
fourth  collection,  and  I  cannot  report  how  the  different 
points  of  view,  the  Southern  and  the  Northern,  were 
reconciled  in  the  event  which  I  am  not  sure  was  final. 
But  I  am  sure  that  unless  you  can  make  allowance  for 
a  world-wide  difference  in  the  Neapolitans  from  your 
self  you  can  never  understand  them.  Perhaps  you 
cannot,  even  then. 


V 
POMPEII   REVISITED 

BECAUSE  I  felt  very  happy  in  going  back  to  Pompeii 
after  a  generation,  and  being  alive  to  do  so  in  the 
body,  I  resolved  to  behave  handsomely  by  the  cabman, 
who  drove  me  from  my  hotel  to  the  station.  I  said 
to  myself  that  I  would  do  something  that  would  sur 
prise  him,  and  I  gave  him  his  fee  and  nearly  a  franc 
over ;  but  it  was  I  who  was  surprised,  for  he  ran  after 
me  into  the  station,  as  I  supposed,  to  extort  more. 
He  was  holding  out  a  franc  toward  me,  and  I  asked 
the  guide  who  was  bothering  me  to  take  him  to  Pompeii 
(where  there  are  swarms  of  guides  always  on  the 
grounds)  what  the  matter  was.  "It  is  false,"  he 
explained,  and  this  proved  true,  though  whether  the 
franc  was  the  one  I  had  given  the  driver  or  whether 
it  was  one  which  he  had  thoughtfully  substituted  for 
it  to  make  good  an  earlier  loss  I  shall  now  never  know. 
I  put  it  into  my  pocket,  wondering  what  I  should  do 
with  it ;  the  question  what  you  shall  do  with  counterfeit 
money  in  Italy  is  one  which  is  apt  to  recur  as  I  have 
hinted,  and  in  despair  of  solving  it  at  the  moment  I 
threw  the  false  franc  out  of  the  car-window;  it  was 
the  false  franc  I  have  already  boasted  of  throwing 
away. 

This  was,  of  course,  after  I  got  into  the  car,  and 
after  I  had  suffered  another  wrong,  and  was  resolved 

55 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

at  least  to  be  good  myself.  I  had  taken  first-class 
tickets,  but,  when  we  had  followed  several  conductors 
up  and  down  the  train,  the  last  of  them  said  there 
were  no  first-class  places  left,  though  I  shall  always 
doubt  this.  I  asked  what  we  should  do,  and  he  shrug 
ged.  I  had  heard  that  if  you  will  stand  upon  your 
rights  in  such  a  matter  the  company  will  ,have  to  put 
on  another  car  for  you.  But  I  was  now  dealing  with 
the  Italian  government,  which  has  nationalized  the 
railroads,  but  has  apparently  not  yet  repleted  the 
rolling  stock;  and  when  the  conductor  found  us  places 
in  a  second-class  carriage,  rather  than  quarrel  with  a 
government  which  had  troubles  enough  already  I  got 
aboard.  I  suppose  really  that  I  have  not  much  public 
spirit,  and  that  the  little  I  have  I  commonly  leave  at 
home;  in  travelling  it  is  burdensome.  Besides,  the 
second  -  class  carriage  would  have  been  comfortable 
enough  if  it  had  not  been  so  dirty;  it  looked  as  if  it 
had  not  been  washed  since  it  was  flooded  with  liquid 
ashes  at  the  destruction  of  Pompeii,  though  they  seemed 
to  be  cigar  ashes. 

The  country  through  which  we  made  the  hour's  run 
v  was  sympathetically  squalid.  "We  had,  to  be  sure,  the 
sea  on  one  side,  and  that  was  clean  enough;  but  the 
day  was  gray,  and  the  sea  was  responsively  gray ;  while 
the  earth  on  the  other  side  was  torn  and  ragged,  with 
people  digging  manure  into  the  patches  of  broccoli,  and 
gardening  away  as  if  it  had  been  April  instead  of 
January.  There  were  shabby  villas,  with  stone-pines 
and  cypresses  herding  about  the  houses,  and  tatters  of 
life-plant  overhanging  their  shabby  walls;  there  were 
stucco  shanties  which  the  men  and  women  working 
in  the  fields  would  lurk  in  at  nightfall.  At  places 
there  was  some  cheerful  boat  building,  and  at  one 
place  there  was  a  large  macaroni  manufactory,  with 

56 


POMPEII    EEVISITED 

far  stretches  of  the  product  dangling  in  hanks  and 
skeins  from  rows  of  trellises.  We  passed  through 
towns  where  women  and  children  swarmed,  working 
at  doorways  and  playing  in  the  dim,  cold  streets ;  from 
the  balconies  everywhere  winter  melons  hung  in  nets, 
dozens  and  scores  of  them,  such  as  you  can  buy  at 
the  Italian  fruiterers'  in  !N"ew  York,  and  will  keep 
buying  when  once  you  know  how  good  they  are.  In 
Naples  they  sell  them  by  the  slice  in  the  street,  the 
fruiterer  carrying  a  board  on  his  head  with  the  slices 
arranged  in  an  upright  coronal  like  the  rich,  barbaric 
head-dress  of  some  savage  prince. 

Our  train  was  slow  and  our  car  was  foul,  but  noth 
ing  could  keep  us  from  arriving  at  Pompeii  in  very 
good  spirits.  The  entrance  to  the  dead  city  is  gar 
dened  about  with  a  cemeterial  prettiness  of  evergreens ; 
but,  after  you  have  bought  your  ticket  and  been  as 
signed  your  guide,  you  pass  through  this  decorative 
zone  and  find  yourself  in  the  first  of  streets  where  the 
past  makes  no  such  terms  with  the  present.  If  some 
of  the  houses  of  an  ampler  plan  had  little  spaces  be 
yond  the  atrium  planted  with  such  flowers  as  probably 
grew  there  two  thousand  years  ago,  and  stuck  round 
with  tiny  figurines,  it  was  to  the  advantage  of  the  peo 
ple's  fancy;  but  it  did  not  appeal  so  much  to  the  im 
agination  as  the  mould  and  moss,  and  the  small,  weedy 
network  that  covered  the  ground  in  the  roofless  cham 
bers  and  temples  and  basilicas,  where  the  broken 
columns  and  walls  started  from  the  floors  which  this 
unmeditated  verdure  painted  in  the  favorite  hue  of 
ruin. 

Most  of  the  places  I  re-entered  through  my  recol 
lection  of  them,  but  to  this  subjective  experience  there 
was  added  that  of  seeing  much  newer  and  vaster  things 
than  I  remembered.  That  sad  population  of  the  vic- 

57 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

tims  of  the  disaster,  restored  to  the  semblance  of  life,  or 
perhaps  rather  of  death,  in  plaster  casts  taken  from 
the  moulds  their  decay  had  left  in  the  hardening  ashes, 
had  much  increased  in  the  melancholy  museum  where 
one  visits  them  the  first  thing  within  the  city  gates. 
But  their  effect  was  not  cumulative;  there  were  more 
writhing  women  and  more  contorted  men;  but  they 
did  not  make  their  tragedy  more  evident  than  it  had 
been  when  I  saw  them,  fewer  but  not  less  affecting, 
all  those  years  ago.  It  was  the  same  with  the  city 
itself;  Pompeii  had  grown,  like  the  rest  of  the  world 
in  the  interval,  and,  although  it  had  been  dug  up  in 
stead  of  built  up,  a  good  third  had  been  added  to  the 
count  of  its  streets  and  houses.  There  were  not,  so 
far  as  I  could  see,  more  ruts  from  chariot-wheels  in 
the  lava  blocks  of  the  thoroughfares,  but  some  con 
vincingly  two-storied  dwellings  had  been  exhumed,  and 
others  with  ceilings  in  better  condition  than  those  of 
the  earlier  excavations;  there  were  more  all-but-un 
broken  walls  and  columns ;  some  mosaic  floors  were  al 
most  as  perfect  as  when  their  dwellers  fled  over  them 
out  of  the  stifling  city.  But  upon  the  whole  the  result 
was  a  greater  monotony;  the  revelation  of  house  after 
house,  nearly  the  same  in  design,  did  not  gain  im- 
pressiveness  from  their  repetition;  just  as  the  case 
would  be  if  the  dwellings  of  an  old-fashioned  cross- 
town  street  in  !New  York  were  dug  out  two  thousand 
years  after  their  submergence  by  an  eruption  of  Orange 
Mountain.  The  identity  of  each  of  the  public  edifices 
is  easily  attested  to  the  archasologist,  but  the  generally 
intelligent,  as  the  generally  unintelligent,  visitor  must 
take  the  archaeologist's  word  for  the  fact.  One  temple 
is  much  like  another  in  its  stumps  of  columns  and 
vague  foundations  and  broken  altars.  Among  the  later 
discoveries  certain  of  the  public  baths  are  in  the  best 

58 


POMPEII    REVISITED 

repair,  both  structurally  and  decoratively,  and  in  these 
/  one  could  replace  the  antique  life  with  the  least  wear 
and  tear  of  the  imagination. 

I  could  not  tell  which  the  several  private  houses 
were;  but  the  guide-books  can,  and  there  I  leave  the 
specific  knowledge  of  them;  their  names  would  say 
nothing  to  the  reader  if  they  said  nothing  to  me.  In 
Pompeii,  where  all  the  houses  were  rather  small,  some 
of  the  new  ones  were  rather  large,  though  not  larger 
than  a  few  of  the  older  ones.  Not  more  recognizably 
than  these,  they  had  been  devoted  to  the  varied  uses 
known  to  advanced  civilization  in  all  ages:  there  were 
dwellings,  and  taverns  and  drinking-houses  and  eating- 
houses,  and  there  were  those  houses  where  the  feet  of 
them  that  abide  therein  and  of  those  that  frequent 
them  alike  take  hold  on  hell.  In  these  the  guide  stays 
the  men  of  his  party  to  prove  the  character  of  the 
places  to  them  from  the  frescos  and  statues;  but  it 
may  be  questioned  if  the  visitors  so  indulged  had  not 
better  taken  the  guide's  word  for  the  fact.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  at  the  heart  of  paganism  the  same 
plague  festered  which  poisons  Christian  life,  and 
which,  while  the  social  conditions  remain  the  same 
from  age  to  age,  will  poison  life  forever. 

The  pictures  on  the  walls  of  the  newly  excavated 
houses  are  not  strikingly  better  than  those  I  had  not 
forgotten ;  but  of  late  it  has  been  the  purpose  to  leave 
as  many  of  the  ornaments  and  utensils  in  position  as 
possible.  The  best  are,  as  they  ought  to  be,  gathered 
into  the  National  Museum  at  Naples,  but  those  which 
remain  impart  a  more  living  sense  of  the  past  than 
such  wisely  ordered  accumulations;  for  it  is  the 
Pompeian  paradox  that  in  the  image  of  death  it  can 
best  recall  life.  It  is  a  grave  which  has  been  laid 

bare,  and  it  were  best  to  leave  its  ghastly  memories 

59 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEKS 

unhindered  by  other  companionship.  One  feels  that 
one  ought  to  be  there  alone  in  order  to  see  it  aright. 
One  should  not  perhaps 

"  Go  visit  it  by  the  pale  moonlight," 

but  if  one  could  have  it  all  to  one's  self  by  day,  such  a 
gray  day  as  we  had  for  it,  there  is  no  telling  what  might 
happen.  One  thing  only  would  certainly  happen:  one 
would  get  lost.  It  never  was  a  town  of  large  area; 
and,  like  all  spaces  that  have  been  ruined  over,  it 
looked  smaller  than  it  would  have  looked  if  all  its 
walls  were  standing  with  all  their  roofs  upon  them. 
Still,  it  was  a  mesh  of  streets,  out  of  which  you  would 
in  vain  have  sought  your  way  if  you  had  been  caught 
in  it  alone;  though  it  is  mostly  so  level  that  if  you 
had  mounted  a  truncated  column  almost  anywhere  you 
could  have  looked  over  the  labyrinth  to  its  verge. 

It  was  not  much  crowded  by  visitors;  though  there 
were  strings  of  them  at  the  heels  of  the  respective 
guides,  with,  I  thought,  a  prevalence  of  the  Germans, 
who  are  now  overrunning  Italy;  I  am  sorry  to  say 
they  are  not  able  to  keep  it  cheap,  at  least  for  other 
nationalities.  Among  these  I  noted  two  little  smiling, 
shining,  twinkling  Japs,  who  carried  kodaks  for  the 
capture  of  that  classical  antiquity  which  could  never 
really  belong  to  them.  Their  want  of  a  pagan  past  in 
common  with  us  may  be  what  keeps  us  alien  even  more 
than  the  want  of  a  common  Christian  tradition. 

"  The  glory  that  was  Greece 
And  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome" 

could  never  mean  to  our  brown  companions  what  they 
meant  to  us;  but  they  put  on  a  polite  air  of  being  in 
terested  in  the  GraBco-Koman  ruin,  and  were  so  gentle 

60 


POMPEII    KEVISITED 

and  friendly  that  one  could  almost  feel  they  were 
fellow-men.  Very  likely  they  were;  at  any  rate,  un 
til  we  are  at  war  with  them  I  shall  believe  so. 

Our  guide,  whom  we  had  really  bought  the  whole 
use  of  at  the  gate,  thriftily  took  on  another  party,  with 
our  leave,  and  it  was  pleasant  to  find  that  the  Ameri 
can  type  from  Utah  was  the  same  as  from  Ohio  or 
Massachusetts;  with  all  our  differences  we  are  the 
most  homogeneous  people  under  the  sun,  and  likest  a 
large  family.  We  all  frankly  got  tired  at  about  the 
same  time  at  the  same  place,  and  agreed  that  we  had, 
without  the  amphitheatre,  had  enough  when  we  ended 
at  the  Street  of  Tombs,  where  the  tombs  are  in  so  much 
better  repair  than  the  houses.  For  myself,  I  remem 
bered  the  amphitheatre  so  perfectly  from  1864  that 
I  did  not  see  how  I  could  add  a  single  emotion  there 
in  1908  to  those  I  had  already  turned  into  literature ; 
and  though  Pompeii  is  but  small,  the  amphitheatre  is 
practically  as  far  from  the  Street  of  Tombs,  after  you 
have  walked  about  the  place  for  two  hours,  as  the 
Battery  is  from  High  Bridge.  There  is  no  Elevated 
or  Subway  at  Pompeii,  and  even  the  lines  of  public 
chariots,  if  such  they  were,  which  left  those  ruts  in  the 
lava  pavements  seem  to  have  been  permanently  sus 
pended  after  the  final  destruction  in  the  year  79. 

We  were  not  only  very  tired,  but  very  hungry,  and 
we  asked  our  guide  to  take  us  back  the  shortest  way. 
I  suggested  a  cross-cut  at  one  point,  and  he  caught  at 
the  word  eagerly,  and  wrote  it  in  his  note-book  for 
future  use.  He  also  acted  upon  it  instantly,  and  we 
cut  across  the  back  yards  and  over  the  kitchen  areas  of 
several  absent  citizens  on  our  way  back.  Our  guide  was 
as  good  and  true  as  it  is  in  the  nature  of  guides  to  be, 
but  absolute  goodness  and  truth  are  rather  the  attributes 

of  American  travellers;  and  you  will  not  escape  the 

61 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

small  graft  which  the  guides  are  so  rigorously  forbid 
den  to  practise.  Pompeii  is  no  longer  in  the  keeping 
of  the  Italian  army;  with  the  Italian  instinct  of  de 
centralization  the  place  has  claimed  the  right  of  self- 
government,  and  now  the  guides  are  civilians,  and  not 
soldiers,  as  they  were  in  my  far  day.  They  do  not 
accept  fees,  but  still  they  take  them;  and  our  guide 
said  that  he  had  a  brother-in-law  who  had  the  best 
restaurant  outside  the  gate,  where  we  could  get  lunch 
eon  for  two  francs.  As  soon  as  we  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  runner  for  that  restaurant  the  price  augmented 
itself  to  two  francs  and  a  half;  when  we  mounted  to 
the  threshold,  lured  on  by  the  fascinating  mystery  of 
this  increase,  it  became  three  francs,  without  wine. 
But  as  the  waiter  justly  noted,  in  hovering  about  us 
with  the  cutlery  and  napery  while  he  laid  the  table, 
a  two-fifty  luncheon  was  unworthy  such  lords  as  we. 
When  he  began  to  bring  on  the  delicious  omelette,  the 
admirable  fish,  the  excellent  cutlets,  he  made  us  ob 
serve  that  if  we  paid  three  francs  we  ought  to  eat 
a  great  deal;  and  there  seemed  reason  in  this;  at  any 
rate,  we  did  so.  The  truth  is,  that  luncheon  was  worth 
the  money,  and  more ;  as  for  the  Yesuvian  wine,  it  had 
the  rich  red  blood  of  the  volcano  in  it,  and  it  could 
not  be  bought  in  New  York  for  half  a  franc  the  bottle, 
if  at  all ;  at  thrice  that  sum  in  Naples  it  was  not  a 
third  as  good. 

If  there  had  been  anything  to  do  after  lunch  except 
go  to  the  train,  we  could  not  have  done  it,  we  were 
so  spent  with  our  two  hours'  walk  through  Pompeii, 
though  the  gray  day  had  been  rather  invigorating. 
Certainly  it  was  not  so  exhausting  as  that  white-hot 
day  forty-three  years  before  when  I  had  broiled  over 
the  same  ground  under  the  blazing  sun  of  a  Pompeian 
November.  Yet  the  difference  in  the  muscles  and  emo- 

62 


POMPEII    EEVISITED 

tions  of  twenty-seven  as  against  those  of  seventy  told 
in  favor  of  the  white-hot  day ;  and,  besides  that,  in  the 
time  that  had  elapsed  a  much  greater  burden  of  an 
tiquity  had  been  added  to  the  city  than  had  accumu 
lated  in  its  history  between  the  year  Y9  and  the 
year  IS 64.  During  most  of  those  centuries  Pompeii 
had  been  dreamlessly  sleeping  under  its  ashes,  but  in 
the  ensuing  less  than  half  a  century  it  had  wakefully, 
however  unwillingly,  witnessed  such  events  as  the  fail 
ure  of  secession  and  the  abolition  of  slavery,  the  uni 
fication  of  Italy  and  Germany,  the  fall  of  the  Second 
Empire,  the  liberation  of  Cuba,  and  the  acquisition 
of  the  Philippines,  the  exile  of  Richard  Croker,  the 
destruction  of  the  Boer  Republic,  the  rise  and  spread 
of  the  trusts,  the  purification  of  municipal  politics,  the 
invention  of  wireless  telegraphy,  and  the  general  adop 
tion  of  automobiling.  These  things,  and  others  like 
them,  had  perhaps  not  aged  Pompeii  so  much  as  they 
had  aged  me,  but  their  subjective  effect  was  the  same, 
and  upon  the  whole  I  was  not  altogether  sorry  to  have 
added  scarcely  a  new  impression  of  the  place  to  those 
I  had  been  carrying  for  more  than  a  generation.  Quan 
titatively  there  were  plenty  of  new  impressions  to  be 
had;  impressions  of  more  roofs,  gardens,  columns, 
houses,  temples,  walls,  frescos;  but  qualitatively  the 
Greater  Pompeii  was  now  not  different  from  the  lesser 
which  I  remembered  so  well. 

This,  at  least,  was  what  I  said  to  myself  on  the 
ground  and  afterward  in  the  National  Museum  at 
Naples,  where  most  of  the  precious  Pompeian  things, 
new  and  old,  are  heaped  up.  They  still  make  but  a 
poor  show  there  beside  the  treasures  of  Herculaneum, 
where  the  excavation  of  a  few  streets  and  houses  has 
yielded  costlier  and  lovelier  things  than  all  the  lengths 

and  breadths  of  Pompeii.     But  not  for  this  would  I 

63 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

turn  against  Pompeii  at  the  last  moment,  as  it  were, 
though  my  second  visit  had  not  aesthetically  enriched 
me  beyond  my  first.  I  keep  the  vision  of  it  under  that 
gray  January  sky,  with  ^7'esuvius  smokeless  in  the  back 
ground,  and  the  plan  of  the  dead  city,  opener  to  the 
eye  than  ever  it  could  have  been  in  life,  inscribed  upon 
the  broadly  opened  area  of  the  gentle  slopes  within 
its  gates.  Whether  one  had  not  better  known  it  dead 
than  alive,  one  might  not  wish  perhaps  to  say ;  but  the 
place  itself  is  curiously  without  pathos;  Newport  in 
ruins  might  not  be  touching;  possibly  all  skeletons  or 
even  mummies  are  without  pathos;  and  Pompeii  is  a 
skeleton,  or  at  the  most  a  mummy,  of  the  past. 

Seeing  what  antiquity  so  largely  was,  however,  one 
might  be  not  only  resigned  but  cheerful  in  the  ef- 
facement  of  any  particular  piece  of  it;  and  for  a  help 
to  this  at  Pompeii  I  may  advise  the  reader  to  take 
with  him  a  certain  little  guide-book,  written  in  English 
by  a  very  courageous  Italian,  which  I  chanced  to  find 
in  Naples.  Though  it  treats  of  the  tragical  facts  with 
seriousness,  it  is  not  with  equal  gravity  that  one  reads 
that  sixteen  years  before  the  Vesuvian  eruption  "  the 
region  had  been  shaken  by  strong  sismic  movements, 
which  induced  Pompei  inhabitants  to  forsake  pre 
cipitately  their  habitations.  But  being  the  amazement 
up,  they  got  one's  home  again  as  soon  as  the  earth  was 
quiet  and  all  fear  and  sadness  went  off  by  memory." 
Signs  of  the  final  disaster  to  follow  were  not  wanting; 
the  wells  failed,  the  water-courses  were  crossed  by  cur 
rents  of  carbonic  acid ;  "  the  domestic  animals  were 
also  very  sensible  of  the  approaching  of  the  scourge; 
they  lost  the  habitual  vivacity,  and  having  the  food 
in  disgust,  had  from  time  to  time  to  complain  with 
mournful  wailings,  without  justified  reasons.  .  .  .  The 

sky  became  of  a  thick  darkness,  .  .  .  interrupted  only 

64 


POMPEII    KEVISITED 

by  flashes  of  light  which  the  lava  riverberated,  by  the 
bloody  gliding  of  the  thunderbolts,  by  the  incandescence 
of  enormous  projectiles,  thrown  to  an  incommensurable 
highness.  .  .  .  Death  surprised  the  charming  town; 
houses  and  streets  became  the  tombs  of  the  unhappies 
hit  by  an  atrocious  torture." 

The  author's  study  of  the  life  of  Pompeii  is  notable 
for  diction  which,  if  there  were  logic  in  language, 
would  be  admirable  English,  for  while  yet  in  his 
mind  it  must  have  been  "  very  choice  Italian."  He 
tells  us  that  "  Pompei's  dwellings  are  surprising  by 
their  specific  littleness,"  and  explains  that  "  Pompei 
inhabitants,  for  the  habitudes  of  the  climate  could  al 
low,  lived  almost  always  to  the  open  sky,"  just  as  the 
Naples  inhabitants  do  now.  "  They  got  home  only  to 
rest  a  little,  to  fulfill  life  wants,  to  be  protected  by 
bad  weather.  They  spent  much  time  during  the  day 
in  forum,  temples,  thermes,  tennis-court,  or  intervened 
to  public  sports,  religious  functions  and  meetings.  .  .  . 
Few  houses  only  had  windows.  The  sunlight  and  ven 
tilation  to  the  ancients  was  given  through  empty  spaces 
in  the  roofs.  .  .  .  Roofs  knocked  under  the  weight  of 
materials  thrown  out  by  Vesuvius;  it  is  undoubted, 
however,  that  roofs  were  provided  with  covers  or  sup 
ported  terraces.  In  the  middle  of  the  roofs  was  cut 
an  ouerture  through  which  air  and  light  brought  their 
benefits  to  the  underlaid  ambients.  .  .  .  Proprietor 
disposed  the  locals  according  to  his  own  delight.  .  .  . 
So  that,  there  were  bed,  bath,  dining,  talking  and 
game  rooms."  In  the  peristyle  "  the  ground  was  gar 
dened,  the  area  shared  in  flower  beds,  had  narrow 
paths;  herbs,  flowers,  shrubs  were  put  with  art  well 
in  order  on  flower  beds,  delighted  from  time  to  time 
by  statues  of  various  subjects,"  as  may  be  noted  in  the 
actual  restorations  of  some  of  the  Pompeian  housest 
6  65 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

As  for  their  spiritual  life,  "  Pompeian's  religion, 
like  by  Roman  people,  was  the  Paganism.  Deities  were 
worshipped  in  the  temples  with  prayers,  sagrifices,  vows, 
and  festivities.  .  .  .  Banquets  to  the  Deity  were  join 
ed  to  prayers.  In  fact,  dining  tables  were  dressed  near 
the  altars,  and  all  around  them  on  dining  beds,  tricli- 
nari,  placed  Divinities  statues  as  these  were  assembled 
to  own  account  to  the  joyous  banquest."  Auspices  or 
auguries  "  gave  interpretation  to  thunders,  lightnings, 
winds,  rain  crashes,  comets,  or  to  bird  songs  and  flights. 
.  .  .  Horuspices  inquired  the  divine  will  on  the  animal 
bowels,  sacrificed  to  the  altar;  they  took  out  further 
indications  by  fleshes  and  bowels  flames  when  burnt  on 
the  altar." 

An  important  feature  of  Pompeian  social  life  was 
the  bath,  which  "  was  one  of  the  hospitality  duty,  and 
very  often  required  in  several  religious  functions.  .  .  . 
Large  and  colossal  edifices  were  quite  furnished  with 
all  the  necessary  for  care  and  sport.  Besides  localities 
for  all  kind  of  bath — cold,  warm,  steam  bath — didn't 
want  parks,  alleys,  and  porticos  in  order  to  walk;  lists 
rings  for  gymnastic  exercises,  conversation  and  reading 
rooms,  localities  for  theatrical  representations,  swim 
ming  stations,  localities  for  scientific  disquisitions, 
moral  and  religious  teachings.  The  most  splendid  art 
works  adorned  the  ambient." 

When  we  pass  to  the  popular  amusements  we  are 
presented  with  the  materials  of  pictures  vividly  real 
ized  in  The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii,  but  somewhat 
faded  since.  "  In  the  beginning  gladiators'  rank  was 
made  by  condemned  to  death  slaves  and  war  prisoners. 
Later  also  thoughtless  young  men,  who  had  never 
learned  an  advantageous  trade,  became  gladiators." 
In  the  arena  they  engaged  in  sham  fights  till  the  spec 
tators  demanded  blood.  Then,  "  sometimes  one  pro- 

60 


POMPEII    EEVISITED 

vided  one's  self  nets  for  wrapping  up  the  adversary, 
who,  hit  by  a  trident  much,  frequently  die.  When 
the  gladiator  was  deadly  wounded,  forsaking  the  arm, 
struck  down  and  stretching  the  index,  asked  the  people 
grace  of  life.  The  spectators  decided  up  his  destiny, 
turning  the  thumb  to  the  breast,  or  toward  the  ground. 
The  thumb  turned  toward  the  ground  was  the  unlucky's 
death  doom,  and  he  had  without  fail  the  throat  cut  off." 

Such,  dimly  but  unmistakably  seen  through  our 
Italian  author's  well  -  reasoned  English,  were  the  an 
cient  Pompeians;  and,  upon  the  whole,  the  visitor 
N/to  their  city  could  not  wish  them  back  in  it. 
I  preferred  even  those  modern  Pompeians  who  fol 
lowed  us  so  molestively  to  the  train  with  bargains  in 
postal-cards  and  coral.  They  are  very  alert,  the  mod 
ern  Pompeians,  to  catch  the  note  of  national  charac 
ter,  and  I  saw  one  of  them  pursuing  an  elderly  Ameri 
can  with  a  spread  of  hat-pins,  primarily  two  francs 
each,  and  with  the  appeal,  evidently  studied  from  some 
fair  American  girl :  "  Buy  it,  Poppa !  Six  for  one 
franc.  Oh,  Poppa,  buy  it!" 

I  had  again  lavished  my  substance  upon  first-class 
tickets,  and  so  had  my  Utah  friend,  who  expounded 
his  philosophy  of  travel  as  we  managed  to  secure  a 
first-class  carriage.  "When  I  can't  go  first-class  in 
Italy,  I'll  go  home."  I  promptly  and  proudly  agreed 
with  him,  but  I  concealed  my  morning's  experience  of 
the  fact  that  in  Italy  you  may  sometimes  go  second 
class  when  you  have  paid  first.  I  agreed  with  him, 
however,  in  not  minding  the  plunder  of  Italian  travel, 
since,  with  all  the  extortions,  it  would  come  to  a  third 
less  than  you  expected  to  spend.  His  was  the  true 
American  spirit. 


VI 
EOMAN   HOLIDAYS 

i 

HOTELS,    PENSIONS,    AND    APARTMENTS 

"  SHALL  I  not  take  mine  ease  in  mine  inn  ?"  the  trav 
eller  asks  rather  anxiously  than  defiantly  when  he  finds 
himself  a  stranger  in  a  strange  place,  and  he  is  apt 
to  add,  if  he  has  not  written  or  wired  ahead  to  some 
specific  hotel,  "  Which  of  mine  inns  shall  I  take  mine 
ease  in  ?"  He  is  the  more  puzzled  to  choose  the  more 
inns  there  are  to  choose  from,  and  his  difficulty  is 
enhanced  if  he  has  not  considered  that  some  of  his 
inns  may  be  full  or  may  be  too  dear,  and  yet  others 
undesirable. 

The  run  from  Naples  in  four  hours  and  a  half  had 
been  so  flattering  fair  an  experience  to  people  who  had 
last  made  it  in  eight  that  they  arrived  in  Rome  on  a 
sunny  afternoon  of  January  preoccupied  with  expecta 
tions  of  an  instant  ease  in  their  inn  which  seemed  the 
measure  of  their  merit.  They  indeed  found  their  inn, 
and  it  was  with  a  painful  surprise  that  they  did  not 
find  the  rooms  in  it  which  they  wanted.  There  were 
neither  rooms  full  south,  nor  over  the  garden,  nor  off 
the  tram,  and  in  these  circumstances  there  was  nothing 
for  it  but  to  drive  to  some  one  else's  inn  and  try  for 

68 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

better  quarters  there.  They,  in  fact,  drove  to  half  a 
dozen  such,  their  demands  rising  for  more  rooms  and 
sunnier  and  quieter  and  cheaper,  the  fewer  and  darker 
and  noisier  and  dearer  were  those  they  found. 

The  trouble  was  that  they  found  in  the  very  first 
alien  hotel  where  they  applied  an  apartment  so  ex 
actly  what  they  wanted,  with  its  four  rooms  and  bath, 
all  more  or  less  full  south,  though  mostly  veering  west 
and  north,  that  they  carried  the  fatal  norm  in  their 

\/  consciousness  and  tested  all  other  apartments  by  it,  the 
earlier  notion  of  single  rooms  being  promptly  rejected 
after  the  sight  of  it.  The  reader  will  therefore  not 
be  so  much  astonished  as  these  travellers  were  to  learn 
that  there  was  nothing  else  in  Rome  (where  there  must 
be  about  five  hundred  hotels,  hotels  gai^nis,  and  pen 
sions)  that  one  could  comparatively  stay  even  over 
night  in,  and  that  they  settled  in  that  alluring  apart 
ment  provisionally,  the  next  day  being  Sunday,  and 
the  crystalline  Saturday  of  their  arrival  being  well 
worn  away  toward  its  topaz  and  ruby  sunset.  Of 
course,  they  continued  their  search  for  several  days 
afterward,  zealously  but  hopelessly,  yet  not  fruitlessly, 
for  it  resulted  in  an  acquaintance  with  Roman  hotels 
which  they  might  otherwise  never  have  made,  and  for 
one  of  them  in  literary  material  of  interest  to  every 
one  hoping  to  come  to  Rome  or  despairing  of  it.  The 
psychology  of  the  matter  was  very  curious,  and  involved 
the  sort  of  pleasing  self-illusion  by  which  people  so 

•'  often  get  themselves  over  questionable  passes  in  lifo 
and  come  out  with  a  good  conscience,  or  a  dead  one, 
which  is  practically  the  same  thing.  These  particular 
people  had  come  to  Rome  with  reminiscences  of  in- 
expensiveness  and  had  intended  to  recoup  themselves 
for  the  cost  of  several  previous  winters  in  New  York 
hotels  by  the  saving  they  would  make  in  their  Roman 

69 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

sojourn.  When  it  appeared,  after  all  the  negotiation 
and  consequent  abatement,  that  their  Roman  hotel 
apartment  would  cost  them  hardly  a  fifth  less  than  they 
had  last  paid  in  New  York,  they  took  a  guilty  refuge 
in  the  fact  that  they  were  getting  for  less  money  some 
thing  which  no  money  could  buy  in  ~New  York.  Grad 
ually  all  sense  of  guilt  wore  off,  and  they  boldly,  or 
even  impudently,  said  to  themselves  that  they  ought 
to  have  what  they  could  pay  for,  and  that  there  were 
reasons,  which  they  were  not  obliged  to  render  in  their 
frankest  soliloquies,  why  they  should  do  just  what  they 
chose  in  the  matter. 

The  truth  is  that  the  modern  Eoman  hotel  is  far 
better  in  every  way  than  the  hotel  of  far  higher  class, 
or  of  the  highest  class,  in  ISTew  York.  In  the  first  place, 
the  managers  are  in  the  precious  secret,  which  our 
managers  have  lost,  of  making  you  believe  that  they 
want  you ;  and,  having  you,  they  know  how  to  look  after 
your  pleasure  and  welfare.  The  table  13  always  of  more 
real  variety,  though  vastly  less  stupid  profusion  than 
ours.  The  materials  are  whc!jsomer  and  fresher  and 
are  without  the  proofs,  always  present  in  our  hotel 
viands,  of  a  probationary  period  in  cold  storage.  As 
for  the  cooking,  there  is  no  comparison,  whether  the 
things  are  simply  or  complexly  treated ;  and  the  service 
is  of  that  neatness  and  promptness  which  ours  is  so 
ignorant  of. 

Your  agreement  is  usually  for  meals  as  well  as 
rooms;  the  European  plan  is  preferably  ignored  in 
Europe;  and  the  table  d'hote  luncheon  and  dinner  are 
served  at  small,  separate  tables ;  your  breakfast  is 
brought  to  your  room.  Being  old-fashioned,  myself, 
I  am  rather  sorry  for  the  small,  separate  tables.  I 
liked  the  one  large,  long  table,  where  you  made  talk 

with  your  neighbors;  but  it  is  gone,  and  much  facile 

70 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

friendliness  with  it,  on  either  hand  and  across  the 
hoard.  The  rooms  are  tastefully  furnished,  and  the 
heds  are  unquestionable;  the  carpets  warmly  cover  the 
floor  if  stone,  or  amply  rug  it  if  of  wood.  The  steam- 
heating  is  generous  and  performs  its  office  of  "  roasting 
you  out  of  the  house  "  without  the  sizzling  and  crack 
ling  which  accompany  its  efforts  at  home.  The  elec 
tricity  really  illuminates,  and  there  is  always  an  elec 
tric  lamp  at  your  hed-head  for  those  long  hours  when 
your  remorse  or  your  digestion  will  not  let  you.  sleep, 
and  you  must  substitute  some  other's  waking  dreams 
for  those  of  your  own  slumbers.  Above  all,  there  is 
a  lift,  or  elevator,  not  enthusiastically  active  or  con 
vulsively  swift,  but  entirely  practicable  and  efficient. 
It  will  hold  from  four  to  eight  persons,  and  will  take 
up  at  least  six  without  reluctance. 

It  must  be  clearly  understood  that  the  ideal  of 
American  comfort  is  fully  and  faithfully  realized,  and 
if  the  English  have  reformed  the  Italian  hotels  in  re 
spect  of  cleanliness,  it  is  we  who  have  brought  them 
quite  to  our  domestic  level  in  regard  to  heat  and  light. 
But  if  we  want  these  things  in  Rome,  we  must  pay  for 
them  as  we  do  at  home,  though  still  we  do  not  pay  so 
much  as  we  pay  at  home.  The  tips  are  about  half  our 
average,  but  whether  they  are  given  currently  or  ulti 
mately  I  do  not  know.  Who,  indeed,  knows  about  others7 
tips  anywhere  in  the  world?  I  asked  an  experienced 
fellow-citizen  what  the  custom  was,  and  he  said  that  he 
believed  the  English  gave  in  going  away,  but  he  thought 
the  spirits  of  the  helpers  drooped  under  the  strain  of 
hope  deferred,  and  he  preferred  to  give  every  week. 
The  donations,  I  understood,  were  pooled  by  the  dining- 
room  waiters  and  then  equally  divided;  but  gifts  be 
stowed  above  stairs  were  for  the  sole  behoof  of  him  or 
her  who  took  them.  Germans  are  said  to  give  less 

71 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

than  Anglo-Saxons,  and  it  is  said  that  Italians  in  some 
cases  do  not  give  at  all.  But,  again,  who  knows  ?  The 
Italians  are  said  never  to  give  drink  money  to  the 
cabmen,  but  to  pay  only  the  letter  of  the  tariff.  If  I 
had  done  that  in  driving  about  to  look  up  worse  hotels 
than  the  one  I  chose  first  and  last,  I  should  now  be 
a  richer  man,  but  I  doubt  if  a  happier.  Two  cents 
seems  to  satisfy  a  Roman  cabman;  five  cents  has  for 
him  the  witchery  of  money  found  in  the  road ;  but 
I  must  not  leave  the  subject  of  hotels  for  that  of  cabs, 
however  alluringly  it  beckons. 

The  reader  who  knows  Italy  only  from  the  past 
should  clear  his  mind  of  his  old  impressions  of  the 
hotels.  There  is  no  longer  that  rivalry  between  the 
coming  guest  and  the  manager  to  see  how  few  or  many 
candles  can  be  lighted  in  his  room  and  charged  in  the 
bill;  there  are  no  longer  candles,  but  only  electricity. 
There  is  no  longer  an  extortion  for  hearth-fires  which 
send  all  the  heat  up  the  chimney;  there  are  steam 
radiators  in  every  room.  There  is  no  longer  a  tedious 
bargaining  for  rooms ;  the  price  is  fixed  and  cannot  be 
abated  except  for  a  sojourn  of  weeks  or  months.  But 
the  price  is  much  greater  than  it  used  to  be — twice  as 
great  almost;  for  the  taxes  are  heavy  and  provisions 
are  dear,  and  coal  and  electricity  are  costly,  and  you 
must  share  the  expense  with  the  landlord.  He  is  not 
there  for  his  health,  and,  if  for  your  comfort,  you  are 
not  his  invited  guest.  As  I  have  intimated,  an  apart 
ment  of  four  rooms  with  a  bath  will  cost  almost  as 
much,  with  board,  as  the  same  quarters  in  New  York, 
but  you  will  get  far  more  for  your  money  in  Rome. 
If  you  take  a  single  room,  even  to  the  south,  in  many 
first-class  Roman  hotels  it  will  cost  you  for  room  and 
board  only  two  dollars  or  two  and  a  half  a  day,  which 

is  what  you  pay  for  a  far  meaner  and  smaller  room 

72 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

alone  in  New  York;  and  the  Eoman  board  is  such  as 
you  can  get  at  none  but  our  most  expensive  houses 
for  twice  the  money.  Generally  you  cannot  get  a 
single  room  and  bath,  but  at  present  a  very  exclusive 
hotel  is  going  up  in  a  good  quarter  which  promises, 
with  huge  English  signs,  a  bath  with  every  room  and 
every  room  full  south.  One  does  not  see  just  how  the 
universal  sunny  exposure  is  to  be  managed,  but  there 
can  be  no  question  of  the  baths;  and,  with  the  steam 
radiators  everywhere,  the  northernmost  room  might  well 
imagine  itself  full  south. 

Nearly  all  the  hotels  have  a  pleasant  tea-room,  which 
is  called  a  winter  garden,  because  of  a  pair  of  palm- 
trees  set  under  the  centre  of  its  glass  roof  and  the 
painted  bamboo  chairs  and  tables  set  about.  This 
sort  of  garden  is  found  even  in  the  hotels  which  are 
almost  of  the  grade  of  pensions  and  of  their  prices; 
but  generally  the  pensions  proper  are  without  it. 
Their  rates  are  much  lower,  but  quite  as  good  people 
frequent  them,  and  they  are  often  found  in  good  streets 
and  sometimes  open  into  or  overlook  charming  gar 
dens;  the  English  especially  seem  to  like  the  pen 
sions,  which  are  managed  like  hotels.  They  are  com 
monly  without  steam-heat,  which  might  account  for 
their  being  less  frequented  by  Americans. 

There  are  two  supreme  hotels  in  Home — one  in  the 
Ludovisi  quarter,  as  it  is  called,  and  the  other  near  the 
Baths  of  Diocletian,  which  Americans  frequent  to  their 
cost,  for  the  rates  approach  a  New  York  or  London 
magnificence.  The  first  is  rather  the  more  spectacular 
of  the  two  and  is  the  resort  of  all  the  finer  sort  of  after 
noon  tea-drinkers,  who  find  themselves  the  observed  of 
observers  of  all  nationalities ;  there  is  music  and  dress, 
and  there  are  titles  of  every  degree,  with  as  much 

informality  as  people  choose,  if  they  go  to  look,  or  as 

73 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

much  state  if  they  go  to  be  looked  at;  these  things 
are  much  less  cumbrously  contrived  than  with  us.  The 
other  hotel,  I  have  the  somewhat  unauthorized  fancy, 
is  rather  more  addicted  to  very  elect  dinner-parties  and 
suppers.  Below  these  two  are  an  endless  variety  of 
first-rate  and  second-rate  houses,  both  in  the  newer 
quarter  of  the  city,  where  the  villa  paths  have  been 
turned  into  streets,  and  in  the  old  town  on  all  the  pleas 
ant  squares  and  avenues.  There  is  a  tradition  of 
unhealth  concerning  the  old  town  which  the  modern 
death-rate  of  Rome  shows  to  be  unjust;  at  the  worst 
these  places  have  more  dark  and  damp,  and  the  hotels 
are  not  steam-heated. 

It  has  seemed  to  me  that  there  are  not  so  many  hotels 
garnis  in  Rome  as  there  used  to  be  in  Italian  cities, 
but  they,  too,  abound  in  pleasant  streets,  and  the 
stranger  who  has  a  fancy  for  lodgings  with  breakfast 
in  his  rooms,  and  likes  to  browse  about  for  his  lunch 
eon  and  dinner,  will  easily  suit  himself.  If  it  comes 
to  taking  a  furnished  apartment  for  the  season,  there 
is  much  range  in  price  and  much  choice  in  place.  The 
agents  who  have  them  to  let  will  begin,  rather  dis 
mayingly,  "  Oh,  apartments  in  Rome  are  very  dear." 
But  you  learn  on  inquiry  that  a  furnished  flat  in  the 
Ludovisi  region,  in  a  house  with  a  lift  and  full  sun, 
may  be  had  for  two  hundred  dollars  a  month.  From 
this  height  the  rents  of  palatial  apartments  soar  to 
such  lonely  peaks  as  eight  hundred  and  sink  to 
such  levels  as  a  hundred  and  twenty  or  a  hun 
dred;  and  for  this  you  have  linen  and  silver  and 
all  the  movables  and  utensils  you  want,  as  well  as 
several  vast  rooms  opening  wastefully  from  one  to  an 
other  till  you  reach  the  salon.  The  rents  of  the  like 
flats,  if  vacant,  would  be  a  quarter  or  a  third  less,  though 

again  the  agents  begin  by  telling  you.  that  there  is  very 

74 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

little  difference  between  the  rents  of  furnished  and 
unfurnished  flats.  The  flats  are  in  every  part  of  the 
old  town  and  the  new;  and  some  are  in  noble  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  century  palaces,  such  as  we  are  ac 
customed  to  at  home  only  in  the  theatre.  My  own 
experience  is  that  everybody,  especially  in  houses 
where  there  are  no  lifts,  lives  on  the  top  floor.  You 
pass  many  other  floors  in  going  up,  but  you  are  left 
to  believe  that  nobody  lives  on  them.  When  you  reach 
the  inhabited  levels,  you  find  them  charming  inside 
for  their  state  and  beauty,  and  outside  for  their  mag 
nificent  view,  which  may  be  pretty  confidently  relied 
upon  to  command  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's.  That  mag- 
/  nificent  stone  bubble  seems  to  blow  all  round  the 
horizon. 

When  you  have  taken  your  furnished  flat,  the  same 
agency  will  provide  you  a  cook  at  ten  or  twelve  dollars 
a  month,  a  maid  at  seven  dollars,  a  lady's  maid  at 
eight  or  nine  dollars,  and  so  on;  the  cook  will  prefer 
to  sleep  out  of  the  house.  Then  will  come  the  question 
of  provisions,  and  these  seem  really  to  be  dear  in  Rome. 
Meats  and  vegetables  both  are  dear,  and  game  and 
poultry.  Beef  will  be  forty  cents  a  pound,  and  veal 
and  mutton  in  proportion;  a  chicken  which  has  been 
banting  for  the  table  from  its  birth  will  be  forty  cents ; 
eggs  which  have  not  yet  taken  active  shape  are  twenty- 
five  and  thirty  cents  throughout  winters  so  bland  that 
a  hen  of  any  heart  can  hardly  keep  from  laying  every 
day.  I  am  afraid  I  am  no  authority  on  butter  and 
milk,  and  groceries  I  do  not  know  the  prices  of;  but 
coffee  ought  to  be  cheap,  for  nobody  drinks  anything 
but  substitutes  more  or  less  unabashed. 

For  the  passing  stranger,  or  even  the  protracted  so- 
]ourner,  whose  time  and  money  are  not  too  much  at 
odds,  a  hotel  is  best,  and  a  hotel  in  the  new  quarter  is 

75 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

pleasanter  than  one  in  the  old  quarters.  Ours,  at  any 
rate,  was  in  a  wide,  sunny,  and  (if  I  must  own  it) 
dusty  street,  laid  out  in  a  line  of  beauty  on  the  borders 
;  of  the  former  Villa  Ludovi  si,  where  the  aging  or  middle- 
;  aging  reader  used  to  come  to  see  Guercino's  "  Aurora  " 
in  the  roof  of  the  casino.  Now  all  trace  of  the  garden 
is  hidden  under  vast  and  vaster  hotels  and  great  blond 
apartment-houses,  and  ironed  down  with  trolley-rails ; 
but  the  Guercino  has  been  spared,  though  it  is  no  longer 
so  accessible  to  the  public.  Still,  there  is  a  garden  left, 
and  our  hotel,  with  others,  looks  across  the  sun  and 
dust  of  its  street  into  the  useful  vegetation  of  the 
famous  old  Capuchin  convent,  with  the  church,  to 
which  I  came  so  eagerly  so  long  ago  to  revere  Guido's 
v  !  "  St.  Michael  and  the  Dragon "  and  the  decorative 
bones  of  the  good  brothers  braided  on  the  walls  and 
roofs  of  the  crypt  in  the  indissoluble  community  of 
floral  and  geometric  designs. 

All  through  the  months  of  February  and  March  I 
woke  to  the  bell  that  woke  the  brothers  to  their  prayers 
before  daybreak  and  burst  the  beauty  -  sleep  of  the 
hotel-dwellers,  who  have  so  far  outnumbered  the  monks 
since  the  obliteration  of  the  once  neighboring  villa. 
This  was,  of  course,  a  hardship,  and  one  thought  things 
of  that  bell  which  the  monks  were  too  good  to  say; 
but  being  awake,  and  while  one  was  reading  one's  self 
to  sleep  again,  one  could  hear  the  beginning  of  the 
bird  singing  in  the  modern  garden  in  the  rear  which 
followed  upon  the  bell-ringing.  I  do  not  know  what 
make  or  manner  of  bird  it  was  that  mostly  sang  among 
the  palms  and  laurels  and  statues,  but  it  had  a  note 
of  liquid  gold,  which  it  poured  till  a  certain  flageo- 
lettist,  whom  I  never  saw,  came  to  the  corner  under  the 
villa  wall  and  blew  his  soul  into  one  end  of  his  in 
strument  and  out  of  the  other  in  the  despondent  breath- 

76 


THE    CAPUCHIN    CHURCH,    ROME 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

ings  of  most  melancholy  music.  Then,  having  attuned 
the  spirits  of  his  involuntary  listeners  to  a  pensive 
sympathy,  he  closed  with  that  international  hymn  which 
does  not  rightly  know  whether  it  is  "  My  Country,  'tis 
of  Thee,"  or  "  God  Save  the  King,"  but  serves  equally 
for  the  patriotism  of  any  English  or  Americans  in 
hearing.  I  do  not  know  why  this  harmless  hymn,  which 
the  flageolettist  gave  extremely  well,  should  always 
have  seemed  to  provoke  the  derision  of  the  donkey 
which  apparently  dwelt  in  harmony  with  the  birds 
in  that  garden,  but  the  flageolettist  had  no  sooner 
ended  than  the  donkey  burst  into  a  bray,  loud,  long, 
and  full  of  mockery,  with  a  close  of  ironical  whistling 
and  most  insolent  hissing;  you  would  think  that  some 
arch-enemy  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  was  laughing  the 
new-felt  unity  of  the  English  and  Americans  to  scorn. 
Later,  but  still  before  daylight,  came  the  wild  cry  of 
a  boy,  somewhere  out  of  perdition,  following  the  deep 
bass  invitation  of  his  father's  lost  spirit  to  buy  his 
wares,  whatever  they  were.  We  never  knew,  but  we 
liked  that  boy's  despairing  wail,  and  would  not  have 
missed  it  for  ever  so  much  extra  slumber.  When  all 
hope  of  more  sleep  was  past  there  was  no  question 
of  the  desirability  of  the  boy  who  visibly  arranged 
his  store  of  oranges  on  the  curbstone  under  the  villa 
wall,  and  seemed  to  think  that  they  had  a  peculiar 
attraction  from  being  offered  for  sale  in  pairs.  His 
cry  filled  the  rest  of  the  forenoon. 

The  Italian  spring  comes  on  slowly  everywhere,  with 
successive  snubs  in  its  early  ardor  from  the  snows  on 
the  mountains,  which  regulate  the  climate  from  north 
to  south.  We  could  not  see  that  it  made  more  speed 
behind  the  sheltering  walls  of  the  Capuchin  convent 
garden  than  in  other  places.  The  old  gardener  whom 
we  saw  pottering  about  in  it  seemed  to  potter  no  more 

77 


BOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

actively  at  the  end  of  March  than  at  the  beginning  of 
February;  on  the  first  days  of  April  a  heap  of  old 
leaves  and  stalks  was  sending  up  the  ruddy  flame  and 
pleasant  smell  that  the  like  burning  heaps  do  with  us 
at  the  like  hour  of  spring — in  fact,  vegetation  had 
much  more  reason  to  be  cheerful  throughout  February 
than  at  any  time  in  March.  Those  February  days 
were  really  incomparable.  They  had  not  the  melting 
heat  of  the  warm  spells  that  sometimes  come  in  our 
Februaries ;  but  their  suns  were  golden,  and  their  skies 
unutterably  blue,  and  their  airs  mild,  yet  fresh.  You 
always  wanted  a  heavy  coat  for  driving  or  for  the 
shade  in  walking;  otherwise  the  temperature  was 
that  of  a  New  England  April  which  was  resolved  to 
begin  as  it  could  carry  out.  But  March  came  with 
cold  rains  of  whole  days,  and  with  suns  that  might 
overheat  but  could  not  be  trusted  to  warm  you.  The 
last  Sunday  of  January  I  found  ice  in  the  Colosseum; 
but  that  was  the  only  time  I  saw  ice  anywhere  in 
Rome.  In  March,  however,  in  a  moment  of  great  ex 
asperation  from  the  mountains,  it  almost  snowed.  Yet 
that  month  would  in  our  climate  have  been  remembered 
for  its  beauty  and  for  a  prevailing  kindness  of  tem 
perature.  The  worst  you  could  say  of  it  was  that  it 
left  the  spring  in  the  Capuchin  garden  where  it  found 
it.  But  possibly,  since  the  temporal  power  was  over 
thrown,  the  seasons  are  neglected  and  indifferent.  Cer 
tainly  man  seems  so  in  the  case  of  the  Capuchin  con 
vent.  Great  stretches  of  the  poor  old  plain  edifice 
look  vacant,  and  the  high  wall  which  encloses  it  is 
plastered  and  painted  with  huge  advertisements  of 
clothiers  and  hotels  and  druggists,  and  announcements 
of  races  and  other  events  out  of  keeping  with  its  char 
acter  and  tradition. 

The  sentimentalists  who  overrun  Home  from  all  the 

78 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

Northern  lands  will  tell  you  that  this  is  of  a  piece 
with  all  the  Newer  Rome  which  has  sprung  into  ex 
istence  since  the  Italian  occupation.  Their  griefs  with 
I  the  thing  that  is  are  loud  and  they  are  long;  but  I, 
who  am  a  sentimentalist  too,  though  of  another  make, 
do  not  share  them.  No  doubt  the  Newer  Rome  has 
made  mistakes,  but,  without  defending  her  indiscrimi 
nately,  I  am  a  Newer-Roman  to  the  core,  perhaps  be 
cause  I  knew  the  Older  Rome  and  what  it  was  like; 
and  not  all  my  brother  and  sister  sentimentalists  can 
say  as  much. 

it 
A   PRAISE   OF   NEW   KOME 

Rome  and  I  had  both  grown  older  since  I  had  seen 
her  last,  but  she  seemed  not  to  show  so  much  as  I  the 
forty-three  years  that  had  passed.  Naturally  a  city 
that  was  already  twenty-seven  centuries  of  age  (and 
no  one  knows  how  much  more)  would  not  betray  the 
lapse  of  time  since  1864  as  a  man  must  who  was  then 
only  twenty-seven  years  of  age.  In  fact,  I  should  say 
that  Rome  looked,  if  anything,  younger  at  our  second 
meeting,  in  1908,  or,  at  any  rate,  newer;  and  I  am  so 
warm  a  friend  of  youth  (in  others)  that  I  was  not 
sorry  to  find  Rome  young,  or  merely  new,  in  so  many 
good  things.  At  the  same  time  I  must  own  that  I 
heard  no  other  foreigner  praising  her  for  her  newness 
except  a  fellow-septuagenarian,  who  had  seen  Rome  ear 
lier  even  than  I,  and  who  thought  it  well  that  the  Ghetto 
should  have  been  cleared  away,  though  some  visitors, 
who  had  perhaps  never  lived  in  a  Ghetto,  thought  it  v 
a  pity  if  not  a  shame,  and  an  incalculable  loss  to  the 
picturesque.  These  also  thought  the  Tiber  Embank- 

78 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

ments  a  wicked  sacrifice  to  the  commonplace,  though 
the  mud-banks  of  other  days  invited  the  torrent  to  an 
easy  overflow  of  whole  quarters  of  the  town,  which 
were  left  reeking  with  the  filth  of  the  flood  that  over 
lay  the  filth  of  the  streets,  and  combined  with  it  to 
an  effect  of  disease  and  of  discomfort  not  always  per 
sonally  unknown  to  the  lover  of  the  picturesque.  There 
jused  to  be  a  particular  type  of  typhoid  known  as  Ro 
man  fever,  but  now  quite  unknown,  thanks  to  the 
Tiber  Embankments  and  to  the  light  and  air  let  into 
the  purlieus  of  that  mediaeval  Rome  for  which  the 
injudicious  grieve  so  loudly.  The  perfect  municipal 
housekeeping  of  our  time  leaves  no  darkest  and  nar 
rowest  lane  or  alley  unswept ;  every  morning  the  shovel 
and  broom  go  over  the  surfaces  formerly  almost  im 
passable  to  the  foot  and  quite  impossible  to  the  nose. 

I  am  speaking  literally  as  well  as  frankly,  and 
though  I  can  understand  why  some  envious  New- 
Yorker,  remembering  our  blackguard  streets  and  ave 
nues,  should  look  askance  at  the  decency  of  the  newer 
Rome  and  feign  it  an  offence  against  beauty  and  poetry, 
I  do  not  see  why  a  Londoner,  who  himself  lives  in  a 
well-kept  town,  should  join  with  any  of  my  fellow- 
barbarians  in  hypocritically  deploring  the  modern 
spirit  which  has  so  happily  invaded  the  Eternal  City. 
The  Londoner  should  rather  entreat  us  not  to  be  hum 
bugs  and  should  invite  us  to  join  him  in  rejoicing  that 
the  death-rate  of  Rome,  once  the  highest  in  the  civilized 
world,  is  now  almost  the  lowest.  But  the  language  of 
Shakespeare  and  Milton  is  too  often  internationally  em- 
v  ployed  in  deploring  the  modernity  which  has  housed 
us  aliens  there  in  such  perfect  comfort  and  safety. 
One  must  confine  one's  self  to  instances,  and  one  may 
take  that  of  the  Ludovisi  Quarter,  as  it  is  called,  where 
I  dwelt  in  so  much  peace  and  pleasure  except  when  I 

80 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

was  reminded  that  it  was  formed  by  plotting  the  love-  , 
Ij  Villa  Ludovisi  in  house  lots  and  building  it  up  in 
attractive  hotels  and  apartment-houses.  Even  then  I 
did  not  suffer  so  keenly  as  some  younger  people,  who 
had  never  seen  the  villa,  seemed  to  do,  though  there 
are  still  villas  to  burn  in  and  about  Rome,  and  they 
could  not  really  miss  the  Ludovisi.  It  was  a  pretty 
place,  but  not  beyond  praise,  and  the  quarter  also  is 
pretty,  though  also  not  beyond  praise.  The  villa  was 
for  the  pleasure  and  pride  of  one  family,  but  it  sig 
nified,  even  in  its  beauty,  nothing  but  patrician  splen 
dor,  which  is  a  poor  thing  at  best;  and  the  quarter  is 
now  for  the  pleasure  and  pride  of  great  numbers  of 
tourists,  mostly  of  that  plutocracy  from  which  a  final 
democracy  is  inevitably  to  evolve  itself.  I  could  see 
no  cause  to  beat  the  breast  in  this;  and  in  humbler 
instances,  even  to  very  humble,  I  could  not  find  that  , 
things  were  nearly  as  bad  in  Rome  as  they  have  been 
painted. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  at  one  time,  directly  after  ^ 
the  coming  of  the  capital,  Rome  was  badly  overbuilt. 
There  is  no  doubt,  also,  that  Rome  has  grown  up  to 
these  rash  provisions  for  her  growth,  and  that  she 
now  "  stuffs  out  her  vacant  garments  with  her  form  " 
pretty  fully.  One  must  not  say  that  all  the  flats  in 
all  the  houses  are  occupied,  but  most  of  them  are ;  and 
if  now  the  property  of  the  speculators  is  the  property 
of  the  banks,  the  banks  are  no  bad  landlords,  and  the 
law  does  not  spare  them  the  least  of  their  duties  to 
their  tenants ;  or  so,  at  least,  it  is  said. 

Another  typical  wrong  to  the  old  Rome,  or  rather 

to  the  not-yet  Rome,  was  the  building-up,  beyond  the 

Tiber,  of  the  Quarter  of  the  Fields,  so  called,  where 

J  Zola  in  his  novel  of  Rome  has  placed  most  of  the 

squalor  which  he  so  lavishly  emplovs  in  its  contrasts, 
e  81 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

In  these  he  shows  himself  the  romanticist  that  he  al 
ways  frankly  owned  he  was  in  spite  of  himself;  but 
after  I  had  read  his  book  I  made  it  my  affair  to  visit 
the  scenes  of  poverty  and  misery  in  the  Quartiere  dei 
Prati.  When  I  did  so  I  found  that  I  had  already 
passed  through  the  quarter  without  noting  anything 
especially  poor  or  specifically  miserable,  and  I  went 
a  third  time  to  make  sure  that  I  had  not  overlooked 
something  impressively  lamentable.  But  I  did  not 
see  above  three  tenement-houses  with  the  wash  hung 
from  the  windows,  and  with  the  broken  shutters  of 
poverty  and  misery,  in  a  space  where  on  the  East  Side 
or  the  North  Side  in  ~New  York  I  could  have  counted*" 
such  houses  by  the  score,  almost  the  hundred.  In  this 
quarter  the  streets  were  swept  every  morning  as  they 
are  everywhere  in  Rome,  and  though  toward  noon  they 
were  beginning  to  look  as  slovenly  as  our  streets  look 
when  they  have  just  been  "  cleaned,"  I  knew  that  the 
next  morning  these  worst  avenues  of  Rome  would  be 
swept  as  our  best  never  have  been  since  the  days  of 
Waring. 

Beyond  the  tenements  the  generous  breadth  of  the 
new  streets  has  been  bordered  by  pleasant  stucco  houses 
of  the  pretty  Italian  type,  fleetingly  touched  but  not 
spoiled  by  the  taste  of  the  art  nouveau,  standing  inV 
their  own  grounds,  and  not  so  high-fenced  but  one 
could  look  over  their  garden-walls  into  the  shrubs  and 
flowers  about  them.  Like  suburban  effects  are  charac 
teristic  of  the  new  wide  residential  streets  on  the  hither 
side  of  the  Tiber,  and  on  both  shores  the  streets  expand 
from  time  to  time  into  squares,  with  more  or  less  tol 
erable  new  monuments — say,  of  the  Boston  average — 
in  them.  The  business  streets  where  they  bear  the  lines 
of  the  frequently  recurrent  trams  are  spacious  and 
straight,  and  though  they  are  not  the  Corso,  the  Corso 

82 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

itself,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  only  a  street  of  shops 
by  no  means  impressive,  and  is  mostly  dim  under  the 
overtowering  walls  of  palaces  which  have  no  space  to 
be  dignified  in.  Now  and  then  their  open  portals  be 
tray  a  glimpse  of  a  fountained  or  foliaged  court,  but 
whether  these  palaces  are  outwardly  beautiful  or  not 
no  one  can  tell  from  what  sight  one  can  get  of  them; 
no,  not  even  the  most  besotted  sentimentalist  of  those 
who  bewail  the  loss  of  mediseval  Rome  when  they 
mean  Rome  of  the  Renaissance.  How  much  of  that 
Rome  has  been  erased  by  modern  Rome  I  do  not  know, 
but  I  think  not  so  much  as  people  pretend.  Some  of 
the  ugly  baroque  churches  have  been  pulled  down  to 
allow  the  excavation  of  imperial  Rome,  but  there 
are  plenty  of  ugly  baroque  churches  left.  It  is 
said  the  princely  proprietors  of  the  old  palaces 
which  are  let  in  apartments  along  the  different 
Corsos  (for  the  Corso  is  several)  are  going  to  pull 
them  down  and  put  up  modern  houses,  with  the 
hope  of  modern  rents,  but  again  I  do  not  know. 
More  than  once  the  fortuities  of  hospitality  found  one 
the  guest  of  dwellers  in  such  stately  domiciles,  and  I 
could  honestly  share  the  anxiety  with  which  they  spoke 
of  these  rumors;  but  there  are  a  great  many  vast  edi 
fices  of  the  sort,  and  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  I 
went  back  to  Rome  after  another  forty-three  years  to 
find  most  of  them  standing  in  1951  where  they  now 
stand  in  1908.  Rome  was  not  built  in  a  day,  and  it 
will  not  be  unbuilt  or  rebuilt  within  the  brief  period 
that  will  make  me  one  hundred  and  fourteen  years 
old.  By  that  time  I  shall  have  outlived  most  of  the 
medievalists,  and  I  can  say  to  the  few  survivors: 
"  There,  you  see  that  new  Rome  never  went  half  so  far 
as  you  expected." 

But  no  doubt  it  will  go  further  than  it  has  yet  gone, 

83 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

in  the  way  that  is  for  the  good  and  comfort  of  man 
kind.  In  one  of  the  newer  quarters,  of  which  the  Baths 
of  Diocletian  form  the  imperial  centre,  my  just  Amer 
ican  pride  was  flattered  by  tho  sign  on  a  handsome 
apartment-house  going  up  in  gardened  grounds,  which 
advertised  that  it  was  to  be  finished  with  a  lift  and 
steam-heating.  Many  of  the  newer  houses  are  already 
supplied  with  lifts,  but  central  heating  is  as  yet  only 
beginning  to  spread  from  the  hotels,  where  steam  has 
tbeen  installed  in  compliance  with  the  impassioned  Amer 
ican  demand  to  be  warm  all  round  when  one  is  in-doors. 
New  Rome  is  not  going  so  fast  and  so  far  but  that 
it  will  keep,  to  whatever  end  it  reaches,  one  of  the  char 
acteristic  charms  of  the  old  and  older  Rome.  I  shall 
expect  to  see  when  I  come  back  in  1951  the  same  or  the 
like  corners  of  garden  walls,  with  the  tops  of  shining 
foliage  peering  over  them,  that  now  enchant  the  passer 
in  the  street;  from  the  windows  of  my  electric-ele- 
vatored,  steam-heated  apartment  I  shall  look  down  into 
the  seclusion  of  gardens,  with  the  golden  globes  of 
orange  espaliers  mellowing  against  the  walls,  and  the 
fountain  in  the  midst  of  oleanders  and  of  laurels 

"  Shaking  its  loosened  silver  in  the  sun." 

Slim  cypresses  will  then  as  now  blacken  through  the 
delicate  air  against  the  blue  sky,  and  a  stone-pine  will 
spread  its  umbrella  over  some  sequestered  nook.  By 
that  time  the  craze  for  the  eucalyptus  which  now  pos 
sesses  all  Italy  will  be  over,  and  every  palm-tree  will 
be  cut  down,  while  the  ilex  will  darken  in  its  place 
and  help  the  eternal  youth  of  the  marbles  to  a  greener 
old  age  of  moss  and  mould  in  the  gloom  of  its  spread 
ing  shade.  All  these  things  beautifully  abound  in 
Rome  now,  as  they  always  have  abounded,  and  there 
is  no  reason  to  fear  that  they  will  cease  to  abound, 

84 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEKS 

Eome  grows,  and  as  Italy  prospers  it  will  grow  more 
and  more,  for  there  must  forever  be  a  great  and  famous 
capital  where  there  has  always  been  one.  The  place 
is  so  perfectly  the  seat  of  an  eternal  city  that  it  might 
v  well  seem  to  have  been  divinely  chosen  because  of  the 
earth  and  heaven  which  are  more  in  sympathy  there 
than  anywhere  else  in  the  world.  The  climate  is  be 
yond  praise  for  a  winter  which  is  mild  without  being 
weak;  there  is  a  summer  of  tolerable  noonday  heat, 
and  of  nights  deliciously  cool;  the  spring  is  scarcely 
earlier  than  in  our  latitudes,  but  the  fall  is  a  long, 
slow  decline  from  the  temperature  of  October  to  the 
lowest  level  of  January  without  the  vicissitudes  of 
other  autumns.  The  embrowning  or  reddening  or  yel 
lowing  leaves  turn  sere,  but  drop  or  cling  to  their  par 
ent  boughs  as  they  choose,  for  there  is  seldom  a  frost  to 
loosen  their  hold,  and  seldom  a  storm  to  tear  them  away. 
So  it  is  said  by  those  who  profess  a  more  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  Roman  meteorology  than  I  can 
boast,  but  from  the  little  I  know  I  can  believe  anything 
of  it  that  is  of  good  report.  Everywhere  the  prevalence 
of  the  ilex,  the  orange,  the  laurel,  the  pine,  flatters  Jan 
uary  with  an  illusion  of  June,  and  under  our  hotel 
windows  I  was  witness  of  the  success  of  the  sycamore 
leaves  in  keeping  a  grip  of  their  native  twigs  even 
after  the  new  buds  came  to  push  them  away.  In  the 
last  days  of  March  a  plum-tree  hung  its  robe  of  white 
blossoms  over  the  wall  of  the  Capuchin  convent  from 
the  garden  within;  but  the  almond-trees  had  been  in. 
bloom  for  six  weeks  before,  and  the  deeper  pink  of  the 
peach  had  more  warmly  flushed  the  suburbs  for  fully 
a  fortnight. 

Still,  a  mild  winter  and  an  endurable  summer  will 
not  of  themselves  make  a  great  capital,  and  it  was 
probably  the  Romans  themselves  who  in  the  past  made 

85 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

Rome  the  capital  of  the  world,  first  politically  and  then 
religiously.  Whether  they  will  make  it  so  hereafter 
remains  to  be  seen.  In  the  sense  of  all  the  Italians 
being  Romans,  I  believe,  with  my  profound  faith  in 
the  race,  that  they  are  very  capable  of  doing  it;  and 
they  will  have  the  help  of  the  whole  world  in  the  work, 
or  what  is  most  liberal  and  enlightened  in  the  whole 
world.  As  it  is,  Rome  has  a  pull  with  Occidental 
/  civilization  which  forever  constitutes  her  its  head  city. 
The  only  European  capitals  comparable  with  her  are 
London,  Paris,  and  Berlin;  one  cannot  take  account 
of  New  York,  which  is  merely  the  commercial  me 
tropolis  of  America,  with  a  possibility  of  becoming 
the  business  centre  of  both  hemispheres.  Washington 
is  still  in  its  nonage  and  of  a  numerical  unimportance 
in  which  it  must  long  remain  almost  ludicrously  in 
ferior  to  other  capitals,  not  to  dwell  upon  its  want 
of  anything  like  artistic,  literary,  scientific,  and  his 
torical  primacy.  It  is  the  voluntary  political  centre 
of  the  greatest  republic  of  any  time  and  of  a  nation 
which  is  already  unrivalled  in  its  claim  upon  the  fut 
ure.  But  it  is  not  of  the  involuntary  and  unconscious 
growth  of  a  capital  like  London,  which  is  the  centre 
of  a  mighty  state,  deep-rooted  in  the  past,  and  the 
capital  of  that  Anglo-Saxon  race  of  which  we  are  our 
selves  a  condition,  and  of  a  colonial  empire  without  a 
present  equal.  Paris  is  France  in  the  sense  of  repre 
senting  the  intense  life  of  a  nation  unsurpassed  in  the 
things  which  enlighten  and  ennoble  the  human  intel 
lect  and  advance  mankind.  Berlin  is  the  concentration 
of  the  strong  will  of  a  state  which  has  made  itself 
great  out  of  the  weak  will  of  sundry  inferior  states, 
homogeneous  in  their  disunity  more  than  in  any  posi 
tive  quality,  and  which  stands  for  a  political  ideal 
more  nearly  reactionary,  more  nearly  mediaeval,  than 

86 


GLIMPSE    INSIDE    OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

any  other  modern  state.  Berlin  is  not  German  as 
Paris  is  French,  and  Rome  is  not  so  exclusively  Italian. 
In  fact,  her  greatness,  accomplished  and  destined,  lies 
in  just  the  fact  that  she  is  not  and  never  can  be  ex-  * 
clusively  Italian.  Human  interests  too  universal  and 
imperative  for  the  control  of  a  single  race,  even  so 
brilliant  and  so  gifted  as  the  Italian  race,  which  is 
naturally  and  necessarily  in  possession,  centre  about 
her  through  history,  religion,  art,  and  make  every  one 
at  home  in  the  city  which  is  the  capital  of  Christen 
dom.  !N"ow  and  then  I  saw  some  shining  and  twinkling 
Japs  going  about  with  Baedekers,  and  I  imagined  them 
giving  a  modest  and  unprejudiced  mind  to  Rome  with 
out  claiming,  tacitly  or  explicitly,  the  right  to  dispute 
the  Italian  theory  and  practice  in  its  control.  But 
every  Occidental  stranger  (if  any  one  of  European 
blood  is  a  stranger  in  the  home  of  Christianity)  I 
knew  to  be  there  in  a  mood  more  or  less  critical,  and 
in  a  disposition  to  find  fault  with  the  Rome  which 
is  now  making,  or  making  over. 

We  journey ers  or  sojourners  can  do  this  without  / 
expense  or  inconvenience  to  ourselves,  and  we  can 
easily  blame  the  Italian  conception  of  the  future  city 
which,  to  name  but  one  fact,  has  made  it  possible 
for  us  to  visit  her  in  comfort  at  every  season  and  to 
come  away  without  having  come  down  with  the  Ro 
man  fever.  In  spite  of  the  sort  of  motherly,  or  at 
the  worst  step-motherly,  welcome  which  she  gives  to 
all  us  closely  or  distantly  related  children  of  hers; 
in  spite  of  her  immemorial  fame  and  her  immortal 
beauty;  in  spite  of  her  admirable  housekeeping,  in 
which  she  rises  every  morning  at  daybreak  and  sweeps 
clean  every  hole  and  corner  of  her  dwelling;  in  spite 
of  her  wonderful  sky,  her  life-giving  air;  in  spite  of 
the  level  head  she  keeps  in  her  political  affairs,  and 

87 


EOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

the  miraculous  poise  she  maintains  between  the  an 
tagonism  of  State  and  Church;  in  spite  of  her  wise 
eclecticism  in  modern  improvements;  in  spite  of  her 
admirable  hygiene,  which  has  constituted  her  one  of 
the  healthiest,  if  not  the  healthiest  city  in  Europe; 
in  spite  of  the  solvency  which  she  preserves  amid 
expenses  to  which  the  vast  scale  of  antiquity  obliges 
her  in  all  her  public  enterprises  (a  thing  to  be  here 
after  studied),  we,  the  ungracious  offspring  of  her 
youth,  come  from  our  2sTorth  and  West  and  censure 
and  criticise  and  carp.  I  have  seldom  conversed  with 
any  -fellow-visitor  in  Rome  who  could  not  improve  her 
in  some  phase  or  other,  who  could  not  usefully  advise 
her,  who,  at  the  best,  did  not  patronize  her.  I  offer 
myself  as  almost  the  sole  example  of  a  stranger  who 
was  contented  with  her  as  she  is,  or  as  she  is  going  to 
be  without  his  help;  and  I  am  the  more  confident, 
therefore,  in  suggesting  to  Eome  an  expedient  by  which 
she  can  repair  the  finances  which  her  visitors  say  are 
so  foolishly  and  wastefully  mismanaged  in  her  civic 
schemes.  A  good  round  tax,  such  as  Carlsbad  levies 
upon  all  sojourners,  if  laid  upon  the  multitudinous 
tourists  joining  in  such  a  chorus  of  criticism  of  Rome 
would  give  them  the  indefeasible  right  to  their  opinions 
and  would  help  to  replete  a  treasury  which  they  believe 
is  always  in  danger  of  being  exhausted. 


in 
THE    COLOSSEUM   AND   THE    FORUM 

As  I  have  told,  the  first  visit  I  paid  to  the  antique 
world  in  Rome  was  at  the  Colosseum  the  day  after  our 
arrival.  For  some  unknown  reason  I  was  going  to 

88 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

begin  with  the  Baths  of  Caracalla,  but,  as  it  happened, 
these  were  the  very  last  ruins  we  visited  in  Kome ;  and 
I  do  not  know  just  what  accident  diverted  us  to  the 
Colosseum;  perhaps  we  stopped  because  it  was  on  the 
way  to  the  Baths  and  looked  an  easier  conquest.  At 
any  rate,  I  shall  never  regret  that  we  began  with  it. 
y  After  twoscore  years  and  three  it  was  all  strangely 
familiar.  I  do  not  say  that  in  1864  there  was  a 
horde  of  boys  at  the  entrance  wishing  to  sell  me  post 
cards — these  are  a  much  later  invention  of  the  Enemy 
— but  I  am  sure  of  the  men  with  trays  full  of  mosaic 
pins  and  brooches,  and  looking,  they  and  their  wares, 
just  as  they  used  to  look.  The  Colosseum  itself  looked 
unchanged,  though  I  had  read  that  a  minion  of  the 
wicked  Italian  government  had  once  scraped  its  flowers 
and  weeds  away  and  cleaned  it  up  so  that  it  was  per 
fectly  spoiled.  But  it  would  take  a  good  deal  more 
than  that  to  spoil  the  Colosseum,  for  neither  the  rapine 
of  the  mediaeval  nobles,  who  quarried  their  palaces 
from  it,  nor  the  industrial  enterprise  of  some  of  the 
popes,  who  wished  to  turn  it  into  workshops,  nor  the 
archaeology  of  United  Italy  had  sufficed  to  weaken 
in  it  that  hold  upon  the  interest  proper  to  the  scene 
of  the  most  stupendous  variety  shows  that  the  world 
has  yet  witnessed.  The  terrible  stunts  in  which  men 
fought  one  another  for  the  delight  of  other  men  in 
every  manner  of  murder,  and  wild  beasts  tore  the 
limbs  of  those  glad  to  perish  for  their  faith,  can  be 
as  easily  imagined  there  as  ever,  and  the  traveller  who 
visits  the  place  has  the  assistance  of  increasing  hordes 
of  other  tourists  in  imagining  them. 

I  will  not  be  the  one  to  speak  slight  of  that  enter 
prise  which  marshals  troops  of  the  personally  con 
ducted  through  the  place  and  instructs  them  in  divers 
languages  concerning  it.  Save  your  time  and  money 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

so,  if  you  have  not  too  much  of  either,  and  be  one  of 
an  English,  French,  or  German  party,  rather  than  try 
to  puzzle  the  facts  out  for  yourself,  with  one  contorted 
eye  on  your  Baedeker  and  the  other  on  the  object  in 
question.  In  such  parties  a  sort  of  domestic  relation 
seems  to  grow  up  through  their  associated  pleasures  in 
sight-seeing,  and  they  are  like  family  parties,  though 
politer  and  patienter  among  themselves  than  real  fam 
ily  parties.  They  are  commonly  very  serious,  though 
they  doubtless  all  have  their  moments  of  gayety;  and 
in  the  Colosseum  I  saw  a  French  party  grouped  for 
photography  by  a  young  woman  of  their  number,  who 
ran  up  and  down  before  them  with  a  kodak  and  coquet- 
tishly  hustled  them  into  position  with  pretty,  bird-like 
chirpings  of  appeal  and  reproach,  and  much  graceful 
self-evidencing.  I  do  not  censure  her  behavior,  though 
doubtless  there  were  ladies  among  the  photographed 
who  thought  it  overbold ;  if  the  reader  had  been  young 
and  blond  and  svelte,  in  a  Parisian  gown  and  hat,  with 
narrow  russet  shoes,  not  too  high-heeled  for  good  taste, 
I  do  not  believe  he  would  have  been  any  better;  or,  if 
he  would,  I  should  not  have  liked  him  so  well. 

On  the  earlier  day  which  I  began  speaking  of  I 
found  that  I  was  insensibly  attaching  myself  to  an 
English-hearing  party  of  the  personally  conducted,  in 
the  dearth  of  my  own  recollections  of  the  local  history, 
but  I  quickly  detached  myself  for  shame  and  went 
back  and  meekly  hired  the  help  of  a  guide  who  had 
already  offered  his  services  in  English,  and  whom  I 
had  haughtily  spurned  in  his  own  tongue.  His  Eng 
lish,  though  queer,  was  voluminous;  but  I  am  not 
going  to  drag  the  reader  at  our  heels  laden  with  lore 
which  can  be  applied  only  on  the  spot  or  in  the  pres- 
'  ence  of  postal-card  views  of  the  Colosseum.  It  is 

enough  that  before  my  guide  released  us  we  knew 

90 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

where  was  the  box  of  Csesar,  whom  those  about  to  die 
saluted,  and  where  the  box  of  the  Vestals  whose  fatal 
thumbs  gave  the  signal  of  life  or  death  for  the  unsuc 
cessful  performer;  where  the  wild  beasts  were  kept, 
and  where  the  Christians;  where  were  the  green-rooms 
of  the  gladiators,  who  waited  chatting  for  their  turn 
to  go  on  and  kill  one  another.  One  must  make  light  ^ 
of  such  things  or  sink  under  them ;  and  if  I  am  trying 
to  be  a  little  gay,  it  is  for  the  readers'  sake,  whom  I 
would  not  have  perish  of  their  realization.  Our  guide 
spared  us  nothing,  such  was  his  conscience  or  his  sci 
ence,  and  I  wish  I  could  remember  his  name,  for  I 
could  commend  him  as  most  intelligent,  even  when 
least  intelligible.  However,  the  traveller  will  know 
him  by  the  winning  smile  of  his  rosy-faced  little  son, 
who  follows  him  round  and  is  doubtless  bringing  him 
self  up  as  the  guide  of  coming  generations  of  tourists. 
There  had  been  a  full  pour  of  forenoon  sunshine 
on  the  white  dust  of  the  street  before  our  hotel,  but 
the  cold  of  the  early  morning,  though  it  had  not  been 
too  much  for  the  birds  that  sang  in  the  garden  back 
of  us,  had  left  a  skim  of  ice  in  damp  spots,  and  now, 
in  the  late  gray  of  the  afternoon,  the  ice  was  vis 
ible  and  palpable  underfoot  in  the  Colosseum,  where 
crowds  of  people  wandered  severally  or  collectively 
about  in  the  half-frozen  mud.  They  were,  indeed,  all 
over  the  place,  up  and  down,  in  every  variety  of  cos 
tume  and  aspect,  but  none  were  so  picturesque  as  a 
little  group  of  monks  who  had  climbed  to  a  higher  tier 
of  the  arches  and  stood  looking  down  into  the  depths 
where  we  looked  up  at  them,  defined  against  the  sky 
in  their  black  robes,  which  opened  to  show  their  under  / 
robes  of  white.  They  were  picturesque,  but  they  were 
not  so  monumental  as  an  old,  unmistakable  American 
in  high-hat,  with  long,  drooping  side-whiskers,  not  above 

91 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEKS 

a  purple  suspicion  of  dye,  who  sat  on  a  broken  column 
and  vainly  endeavored  to  collect  his  family  for  de 
parture.  Whenever  he  had  gathered  two  or  three  about 
him  they  strayed  off  as  the  others  came  up,  and  we 
left  him  sardonically  patient  of  their  adhesions  and 
defections,  which  seemed  destined  to  continue  in 
definitely,  while  we  struggled  out  through  the  postal- 
card  boys  and  mosaic-pin  men  to  our  carriage.  Then 
we  drove  away  through  the  quarter  of  somewhat  jerry- 
built  apartment-houses  which  neighbor  the  Colosseum, 
and  on  into  the  salmon  sunset  which,  after  the  gray  of 
the  afternoon,  we  found  waiting  us  at  our  hotel,  with 
the  statues  on  the  balustrated  wall  of  the  villa  garden 
behind  it  effectively  posed  in  the  tender  light,  together 
with  the  eidolons  of  those  picturesque  monks  and  that 
monumental  American. 

We  could  safely  have  stayed  longer,  for  the  even 
ing  damp  no  longer  brings  danger  of  Roman  fever, 
which  people  used  to  take  in  the  Colosseum,  unless 
I  am  thinking  of  the  signal  case  of  Daisy  Miller. 
She,  indeed,  I  believe,  got  it  there  by  moonlight;  but 
now  people  visit  the  place  by  moonlight  in  safety ;  and 
there  are  even  certain  nights  of  the  season  advertised 
when  yon  may  see  it  by  the  varicolored  lights  of  the 
fireworks  set  off  in  it.  My  impression  of  it  was  quite 
vivid  enough  without  that,  and  the  vision  of  the  Colos 
seum  remained,  and  still  remains,  the  immense  skele 
ton  of  the  stupendous  form  stripped  of  all  integumental 
charm  and  broken  down  half  one  side  of  its  vast  oval, 
so  that  wellnigh  a  quarter  of  the  structural  bones  are 
gone. 

With  its  image  there  persisted  and  persists  the  ques 
tion  constantly  recurrent  in  the  presence  of  all  the  im 
perial  ruins,  whether  imperial  Rome  was  not  rather 
ugly  than  otherwise.  The  idea  of  those  world -con- 

92 


m 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

querors  was  first  immensity  and  then  beauty,  as  much 
as  could  survive  consistently  with  getting  immensity 
into  a  given  space.  The  question  is  most  of  all  poig 
nant  in  the  Forum,  which  I  let  wait  a  full  fortnight 
before  moving  against  it  in  the  warm  sun  of  an  amiable 
February  morning.  On  my  first  visit  to  Rome  I  could 
hardly  wait  for  clay  to  dawn  after  my  arrival  before 
rushing  to  the  Cow  Field,  as  it  was  then  called,  and 
seeing  the  wide-horned  cattle  chewing  the  cud  among 
the  broken  monuments  now  so  carefully  cherished  and, 
as  it  were,  sedulously  cultivated.  It  is  doubtful  whether 
all  that  has  since  been  done,  and  which  could  not  but 
have  been  done,  by  the  eager  science  as  much  invol 
untarily  as  voluntarily  applied  to  the  task,  has  re 
sulted  in  a  more  potent  suggestion  of  what  the  Forum  J 
was  in  the  republican  or  imperial  day  than  what  that 
simple,  old,  unassuming  Cow  Field  afforded.  There 
were  then  as  now  the  beautiful  arches;  there  were  the 
fragments  of  the  temple  porches,  with  their  pillars; 
there  was  the  "  unknown  column  with  the  buried  base  " ; 
there  were  all  the  elements  of  emotion  and  meditation ; 
and  it  is  possible  that  sentiment  has  only  been  cum 
bered  with  the  riches  which  archaeology  has  dug  up  for 
it  by  lowering  the  surface  of  the  Cow  Field  fifteen  or 
twenty  feet;  by  scraping  clean  the  buried  pavements; 
by  identifying  the  storied  points;  by  multiplying  the 
fragments  of  basal  or  columnar  marbles  and  revealing 
the  plans  of  temples  and  palaces  and  courts  and  tracing 
the  Sacred  Way  on  which  the  magnificence  of  the  past 
went  to  dusty  death.  After  all,  the  imagination  is 
very  childlike,  and  it  prefers  the  elements  of  its  pleas- v/ 
ures  simple  and  few;  if  the  materials  are  very  abun 
dant  or  complex,  it  can  make  little  out  of  them;  they 
embarrass  it,  and  it  turns  critical  in  self-defence.  The 
grandeur  that  was  Rome  as  visioned  from  the  Cow 

93 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

Field  becomes  in  the  mind's  eye  the  kaleidoscopic  clut 
ter  which  the  resurrection  of  the  Forum.  Romanum 
must  more  and  more  realize. 

If  the  visitor  would  have  some  rash  notion  of  what 
the  ugliness  of  the  place  was  like  when  it  was  in  its 
glory,  he  may  go  look  at  the  plastic  reconstruction  of 
it,  indefinitely  reduced,  in  the  modest  building  across 
the  way  from  the  official  entrance  to  the  Forum.  One 
cannot  say  but  this  is  intensely  interesting,  and  it  af 
fords  the  consolation  which  the  humble  (but  not  too 
humble)  spirit  may  gather  from  witness  of  the  past, 
that  the  fashion  of  this  world  and  the  pride  of  the  eyes 
and  all  ruthless  vainglory  defeated  themselves  in  an 
cient  Rome,  as  they  must  everywhere  when  they  can 
work  their  will.  If  one  had  thought  that  in  magnitude 
and  multitude  some  entire  effect  of  beauty  was  latent, 
one  had  but  to  look  at  that  huddle  of  warring  forms, 
each  with  beauty  in  it,  but  beauty  lost  in  the  crazy 
agglomeration  of  temples  and  basilicas  and  columns 
and  arches  and  statues  and  palaces,  incredibly  painted 
and  gilded,  and  huddled  into  spaces  too  little  for  the 
least,  and  crowding  severally  upon  one  another,  with 
out  relation  or  proportion.  Their  mass  is  supremely 
tasteless,  almost  senseless;  that  mob  of  architectural 
incongruities  was  not  only  without  collective  beauty, 
but  it  was  without  that  far  commoner  and  cheaper 
thing  which  we  call  picturesqueness.  This  has  come 
to  it  through  ruin,  and  we  must  give  a  new  meaning 
v  to  the  word  vandalism  if  we  would  appreciate  what 
the  barbarians  did  for  Rome  in  tumbling  her  tawdry 
splendor  into  the  heaps  which  are  now  at  least  paint- 
able.  Imperial  Rome  as  it  stood  was  not  paintable; 
I  doubt  if  it  would  have  been  even  photographable  to 
anything  but  a  picture  post-card  effect. 

But  as  yet  I  wandered  in  the  Forum  safe  from  the 

94 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

realization  of  its  ugliness  when  it  was  in  its  glory.  I 
cannot  say  that  even  now  it  is  picturesque,  but  it  is 
paintable,  and  certainly  it  is  pathetic.  Stumps  of 
columns,  high  and  low,  stand  about  in  the  places 
where  they  stood  in  their  unbroken  pride,  and  though 
it  seems  a  hardship  that  they  should  not  have  been 
left  lying  in  the  kindly  earth  or  on  it  instead  of  be 
ing  pulled  up  and  set  on  end,  it  must  be  owned  that 
they  are  scarcely  overworked  in  their  present  postures. 
More  touching  are  those  inarticulate  heaps,  cairns  of 
sculptured  fragments,  piled  here  and  there  together  and 
waiting  the  knowledge  which  is  some  time  to  assort 
them  and  translate  them  into  some  measure  of  coherent- 
meaning.  But  it  must  always  be  remembered  that  when 
they  were  coherent  they  were  only  beautiful  parts  of  a 
whole  that  was  brutally  unbeautiful.  We  have  but  to 
use  the  little  common-sense  which  Heaven  has  vouch 
safed  some  of  us  in  order  to  realize  that  Rome,  either 
republican  or  imperial,  was  a  state  for  which  we  can 
have  no  genuine  reverence,  and  that  mostly  the  ruins 
of  her  past  can  stir  in  us  no  finer  emotion  than  wonder. 
But  necessarily,  for  the  sake  of  knowledge,  and  of 
ascertaining  just  what  quantity  and  quality  of  human 
interest  the  material  records  of  Roman  antiquity  em 
body,  archeology  must  devote  itself  with  all  possible 
piety  to  their  recovery.  The  removal,  handful  by 
handful,  of  the  earth  from  the  grave  of  the  past 
which  the  whole  Forum  is,  tomb  upon  tomb,  is  as 
dramatic  a  spectacle  as  anything  one  can  well  witness ; 
for  that  soil  is  richer  than  any  gold-mine  in  its  po 
tentiality  of  treasure,  and  it  must  be  strictly  scru 
tinized,  almost  by  particles,  lest  some  gem  of  art 
should  be  cast  aside  with  the  accumulated  rubbish  of 
centuries.  Yet  this  drama,  poignantly  suggestive  as 
it  always  must  be,  was  the  least  incident  of  that 

95 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

morning  in  the  Forum  which  it  was  my  fortune 
to  pass  there  with  other  better  if  not  older  tourists  as 
guest  of  the  Genius  Loci.  It  was  not  quite  a  public 
event,  though  the  Commend  atore  Boni  is  so  well  known 
to  the  higher  journalism,  and  even  to  fiction  (as  the 
reader  of  Anatole  France's  La  Pierre  Blanche  will 
not  have  forgotten),  that  nothing  which  he  archseolog- 
ically  does  is  without  public  interest,  and  this  excur 
sion  in  the  domain  of  antiquity  was  expected  to  result 
in  identifying  the  site  of  the  Temple  of  Jupiter  Stator. 
It  was  conjectured  that  the  temple  vowed  to  this  specific 
Jupiter  for  his  public  spirit  in  stopping  the  flight  of 
a  highly  demoralized  Roman  army  would  be  found 
where  we  actually  found  it.  Archaeology  seems  to  pro 
ceed  by  hypothesis,  like  other  sciences,  and  to  enjoy 
a  forecast  of  events  before  they  are  actually  accom 
plished.  I  do  not  say  that  I  was  very  vividly  aware 
of  the  event  in  question ;  I  could  not  go  now  and  show 
where  the  temple  stood,  but  when  I  read  of  it  in  a 
cablegram  to  the  American  newspapers  I  almost  felt 
that  I  had  dug  it  up  with  my  own  hands. 

Of  many  other  facts  I  was  at  the  time  vividly  aware : 
of  the  charm  of  finding  the  archaeologist  in  an  upper 
room  of  the  mediaeval  church  which  is  turning  itself 
into  his  study,  of  listening  to  his  prefatory  talk,  so 
informal  and  so  easy  that  one  did  not  realize  how 
learned  it  was,  and  then  of  following  him  down  to 
the  scene  of  his  researches  and  hearing  him  speak  wise 
ly,  poetically,  humorously,  even,  of  what  he  believed 
he  had  reason  to  expect  to  find.  We  stood  with  him 
by  the  Arch  of  Titus  and  saw  how  the  sculptures  had 
been  broken  from  it  in  the  fragments  found  at  its  base, 
and  how  the  carved  marbles  had  been  burned  for  lime 
in  the  kiln  built  a  few  feet  off,  so  that  those  who  wanted 

the  lime  need  not  have  the  trouble  of  carrying  the 

96 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

sculptures  away  before  burning  them.  A  handful  of 
iridescent  glass  from  a  house-drain  near  by,  where  it 
had  been  thrown  by  the  servants  after  breaking  it, 
testified  of  the  continuity  of  human  nature  in  the  do 
mestics  of  all  ages.  A  somewhat  bewildering  sug 
gestion  of  the  depth  at  which  the  different  periods 
of  Rome  underlie  one  another  spoke  from  the  mouth 
of  the  imperial  well  or  cistern  which  had  been  sunk 
on  the  top  of  a  republican  well  or  cistern  at  another 
corner  of  the  arch.  In  a  place  not  far  off,  looking  like 
a  potter's  clay  pit,  were  graves  so  old  that  they  seem 
to  have  antedated  the  skill  of  man  to  spell  any  record 
of  himself;  and  in  the  small  building  which  seems  the 
provisional  repository  of  the  archaeologist's  finds  we 
saw  skeletons  of  the  immemorial  dead  in  the  coffins 
of  split  trees  still  shutting  them  imperfectly  in.  Most 
ly  the  bones  and  bark  were  of  the  same  indifferent 
interest,  but  the  eternal  pathos  of  human  grief  ap 
pealed  from  what  mortal  part  remained  of  a  little 
child,  with  beads  on  her  tattered  tunic  and  an  ivory 
bracelet  on  her  withered  arm.  History  in  the  pres 
ence  of  such  world-old  atomies  seemed  an  infant  bab-V 
bling  of  yesterday,  in  what  it  could  say  of  the  Rome 
of  the  Popes,  the  Rome  of  the  Emperors,  the  Rome  of 
the  Republicans,  the  Rome  of  the  Kings,  the  Rome  of 
the  Shepherds  and  Cowherds,  through  which  a  shaft 
sunk  in  the  Forum  would  successively  pierce  in  reach 
ing  those  aboriginals  whose  sepulchres  alone  witnessed 
that  they  had  ever  lived. 

It  is  the  voluble  sorrow  common  to  all  the  emotional 
visitors  in  Rome  that  the  past  of  the  different  genera 
tions  has  not  been  treated  by  the  present  with  due 
tenderness,  and  the  Colosseum  is  a  case  notoriously  in 
point.  But,  if  it  was  an  Italian  archaeologist  who  de 
stroyed  the  wilding  growths  in  the  Colosseum  and 
'  97 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

scraped  it  to  a  bareness  which  nature  is  again  trying 
to  clothe  with  grass  and  weeds,  it  ought  to  be  remem 
bered  that  it  is  another  Italian  archaeologist  who  has 
set  laurels  all  up  and  down  the  slopes  of  the  Forum, 
and  has  invited  roses  and  honeysuckles  to  bloom  wher 
ever  they  shall  not  interfere  with  science,  but  may  best 
help  repair  the  wounds  he  must  needs  deal  the  soil  in 
researches  which  seem  no  mere  dissections,  but  feats 
of  a  conservative,  almost  a  constructive  surgery.  It 
is  said  that  the  German  archaeologists  objected  to  those 
laurels  where  the  birds  sing  so  sweetly;  perhaps  they 
thought  them  not  strictly  scientific ;  but  when  the  Ger 
man  Kaiser,  who  always  knows  so  much  better  than 
all  the  other  Germans  put  together,  visited  the  Forum, 
he  liked  them,  and  he  parted  from  the  Genius  Loci 
with  the  imperial  charge,  "  Laurels,  laurels,  evermore 
laurels."  After  that  the  emotional  tourist  must  be 
hard  indeed  to  please  who  would  begrudge  his  laurels 
to  Commendatore  Boni,  or  would  not  wish  him  a  per 
petual  crown  of  them. 


IV 

THE    ANGLO-AMERICAN    NEIGHBORHOOD   OF   THE 
SPANISH    STEPS 

It  is  not  every  undeserving  American  who. can  have 
the  erudition  and  divination  of  the  Genius  Loci  in  an 
swer  to  his  unuttered  prayer  during  a  visit  to  even  a 
small  part  of  the  Eoman  Forum.  But  failing  the 
company  of  the  Commendatore  Boni,  which  is  with 
out  price,  there  are  to  be  had  for  a  very  little  money 
the  guidance  and  philosophy,  and,  for  all  I  know,  the 
friendship  of  several  peripatetic  historians  who  lead 
people  about  the  ruins  in  Home,  and  instruct  them  in 

98 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

the  fable,  and  doubtless  in  the  moral,  of  the  things 
they  see.  If  I  had  profited  by  their  learning,  so  much 
greater,  or  at  least  securer,  than  any  the  average 
American  has  about  him,  I  should  now  be  tiring  the 
reader  with  knowledge  which  I  am  so  willingly  leav 
ing  him  to  imagine  in  me.  If  he  is  like  the  average 
American,  he  has  really  once  had  some  nodding  ac 
quaintance  with  the  facts,  but  history  is  apt  to  forsake 
you  on  the  scene  of  it,  and  to  come  lagging  back  when 
it  is  too  late.  In  this  psychological  experience  you  feel 
the  need  of  help  which  the  peripatetic  historian  sup 
plies  to  the  groups  of  perhaps  rather  oblivious  than 
ignorant  tourists  of  all  nations  in  all  languages,  but 
preferably  English.  We  Anglo-Saxons  seem  to  be  the  ^ 
most  oblivious  or  most  ignorant ;  but  I  would  not  slight 
our  occasionally  available  culture  any  more  than  I 
would  imply  that  those  peripatetic  historians  are  at 
all  like  the  cicerones  whom  they  have  so  largely  re 
placed.  I  believe  they  are  instructed  and  scholarly 
men;  I  offer  them  my  respect;  and  I  wish  now  that 
I  had  been  one  of  their  daily  disciples,  for  it  is  full 
sixty  years  since  I  read  Goldsmith's  History  of  Rome. 
As  I  saw  them,  somewhat  beyond  earshot,  they  and 
their  disciples  formed  a  spectacle  which  was  always 
interesting,  and,  so  far  as  the  human  desire  for  in 
formation  is  affecting,  was  also  affecting.  The  listen 
ers  to  the  lecturers  would  carry  back  to  their  respective 
villages  and  towns,  or  the  yet  simpler  circles  of  our 
ordinary  city  lift,  vastly  more  association  with  the 
storied  scene  than  I  had  brought  to  it  or  should  bring 
away.  In  fact,  there  is  nothing  more  impressive  in 
the  floating  foreign  society  of  Eome  than  its  zeal  for  v 
self-improvement.  No  one  classes  himself  with  his 
fellow-tourists,  though  if  he  happens  to  be  a  traveller 
he  is  really  one  of  them;  and  it  is  with  difficulty  I 

99 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

keep  myself  from  the  appearance  of  patronizing  them 
v/  in  these  praises,  which  are  for  the  most  part  reverently 
meant.  Their  zeal  never  seemed  to  be  without  knowl 
edge,  whatever  their  age  or  sex;  the  intensity  of  their 
application  reached  to  all  the  historical  and  actual  in 
terests,  to  the  religious  as  well  as  the  social,  the  polit 
ical  as  well  as  the  financial;  but,  fitly  in  Home,  it 
seemed  specially  turned  to  the  study  of  antiquity, 
in  the  remoter  or  the  nearer  past.  There  was  given 
last  winter  a  series  of  lectures  at  the  American  School 
of  Archaeology  by  the  head  of  it,  which  were  followed 
with  eager  attention  by  hearers  who  packed  the  room. 
But  these  lectures,  which  were  so  admirably  first  in 
the  means  of  intelligent  study,  seemed  only  one  of  the 
means  by  which  my  fellow-tourists  were  climbing  the 
different  branches  of  knowledge.  All  round  my  apathy 
I  felt,  where  I  did  not  see,  the  energy  of  the  others; 
with  my  mind's  ear  I  heard  a  rustle  as  of  the  turning 
leaves  of  Baedekers,  of  Murrays,  of  Hares,  and  of  the 
many  general  histories  and  monographs  of  which  these 
intelligent  authorities  advised  the  supplementary  read 
ing. 

If  I  am  not  so  mistaken  as  I  might  very  well  be, 
however,  the  local  language  is  less  studied  than  it  was 
in  former  times,  when  far  fewer  Italians  spoke  Eng 
lish.  My  own  Italian  was  of  that  date;  but,  though  I 
began  by  using  it,  I  found  myself  so  often  helped  for 
a  forgotten  meaning  that  I  became  subtly  demoralized 
and  fell  luxuriously  into  the  habit  of  speaking  English 
like  a  native  of  Rome.  Yet  tacitly,  secretly  perhaps, 
there  may  have  been  many  people  who  were  taking  up 
Italian  as  zealously  as  many  more  were  taking  up  an 
tiquity.  One  day  in  the  Piazza  di  Spagna,  in  a  modest 
little  violet  of  a  tea-room,  which  was  venturing  to  open 
in  the  face  of  the  old-established  and  densely  thronged 

100 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEKS 

parterre  opposite,  I  noted  from  my  Roman  version  of 
a  buttered  muffin  a  tall,  young  Scandinavian  girl,  clad 
in  complete  corduroy,  gray  in  color  to  the  very  cap 
surmounting  her  bandeaux  of  dark-red  hair.  She  look 
ed  like  some  of  those  athletic-minded  young  women 
of  Ibsen's  plays,  and  the  pile  of  books  on  the  table 
beside  her  tea  suggested  a  student  character.  When 
she  had  finished  her  tea  she  put  these  books  back  into 
a  leather  bag,  which  they  filled  to  a  rigid  repletion, 
and,  after  a  few  laconic  phrases  with  the  tea-girl,  she 
went  out  like  going  off  the  stage.  Her  powerful  de 
meanor  somehow  implied  severe  studies;  but  the  tea- 
girl  —  a  massive,  confident,  confiding  Roman  —  said, 
!Nb,  she  was  studying  Italian,  and  all  those  books  re 
lated  to  the  language,  for  which  she  had  a  passion. 
She  was  a  Swede ;  and  here  the  student  being  exhausted 
as  a  topic,  and  my  own  nationality  being  ascertained, 
What  steps,  the  tea-girl  asked,  should  one  take  if  one 
wished  to  go  to  New  York  in  order  to  secure  a  place 
as  cashier  in  a  restaurant  ? 

My  facts  were  not  equal  to  the  demand  upon  them, 
nor  are  they  equal  to  anything  like  exact  knowledge 
of  the  intellectual  pursuits  of  the  many  studious  for 
eign  youth  of  all  ages  and  sexes  whom  one  meets  in 
Rome.  As  I  say,  our  acquaintance  with  Italian  is  far 
less  useful,  however  ornamental,  than  it  used  to  be. 
The  Romans  are  so  quick  that  they  understand  you 
when  they  speak  no  English,  and  take  your  meaning 
before  you  can  formulate  it  in  their  own  tongue.  A 
classically  languaged  friend  of  mine,  who  was  hard 
bested  in  bargaining  for  rooms,  tried  his  potential 
landlord  in  Latin,  and  was  promptly  answered  in 
Latin.  It  was  a  charming  proof  that  in  the  home 
of  the  Church  her  mother-speech  had  never  ceased  to 
be  spoken  by  some  of  her  children,  but  I  never  heard 

101 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEES 

of  any  Americans,  except  my  friend,  recurring  to  their 
college  courses  in  order  to  meet  the  modern  Latins  in 
their  ancient  parlance.  In  spite  of  this  instance,  and 
that  of  the  Swedish  votary  of  Italian,  I  decided  that 
the  studies  of  most  strangers  were  archaeological  rather 
than  philological,  historical  rather  than  literary,  topo 
graphical  rather  than  critical.  I  do  not  say  that  I 
had  due  confirmation  of  my  theory  from  the  talk  of 
the  fellow-sojourners  whom  one  is  always  meeting  at 
teas  and  lunches  and  dinners  in  Eome.  Generally  the 
talk  did  not  get  beyond  an  exchange  of  enthusiasms 
for  the  place,  and  of  experiences  of  the  morning,  in  the 
respective  researches  of  the  talkers. 

Such  of  us  as  were  staying  the  winter,  of  course 
held  aloof  from  the  hurried  passers-through,  or  looked 
with  kindly  tolerance  on  their  struggles  to  get  more 
out  of  Home  in  a  given  moment  than  she  perhaps 
yielded  with  perfect  acquiescence.  We  fancied  that 
she  kept  something  back;  she  is  very  subtle,  and  has 
her  reserves  even  with  people  who  pass  a  whole  winter 
within  her  gates.  The  fact  is,  there  are  a  great  many 
of  her,  though  we  knew  her  afar  as  one  mighty  per 
sonality.  There  is  the  antique  Rome,  the  mediaeval 
Rome,  the  modern  Rome;  but  that  is  only  the  begin 
ning.  There  is  the  Rome  of  the  State  and  the  Rome 
of  the  Church,  which  divide  between  them  the  Rome 
of  politics  and  the  Rome  of  fashion;  but  here  is  a 
field  so  vast  that  we  may  not  enter  it  without  danger 
of  being  promptly  lost  in  it.  There  is  the  Rome  of  the 
visiting  nationalities,  severally  and  collectively;  there 
is  especially  the  Anglo- American  Rome,  which  if  not 
so  populous  as  the  German,  for  instance,  is  more  im 
portant  to  the  Anglo-Saxons.  It  sees  a  great  deal  of 
itself  socially,  but  not  to  the  exclusion  of  the  sym 
pathetic  Southern  temperaments  which  seem  to  have  a 

102 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

strange  but  not  iinnatural  affinity  with  it.  So  far  as 
we  might  guess,  it  was  a  little  more  Clerical  than.  Lib 
eral  in  its  local  politics;  if  you  were  very  Liberal,  it 
was  well  to  be  careful,  for  Conversion  lurked  under 
many  exteriors  which  gave  no  outward  sign  of  it;  if 
the  White  of  the  monarchy  and  the  Black  of  the  papacy 
divide  the  best  Roman  families,  of  course  foreigners 
are  more  intensely  one  or  the  other  than  the  natives. 
But  Anglo-Saxon  life  was  easy  for  one  not  self-obliged 
to  be  of  either  opinion  or  party;  and  it  was  pleasant 
in  most  of  its  conditions.  In  Rome  our  internationali- 
ties  seemed  to  have  certain  quarters  largely  to  them 
selves.  In  spite  of  our  abhorrence  of  the  destruction 
and  construction  which  have  made  modern  Rome  so 
wholesome  and  delightful,  most  of  us  had  our  habita 
tions  in  the  new  quarters;  but  certain  pleasanter  of 
the  older  streets,  like  the  Via  Sistina,  Via  del  Babuino, 
Via  Capo  le  Case,  Via  Gregoriana,  were  our  sojourn 
or  our  resort.  Especially  in  the  two  first  our  language 
filled  the  outer  air  to  the  exclusion  of  other  conver 
sation,  and  within  doors  the  shopmen  spoke  it  at  least 
as  well  as  the  English  think  the  Americans  speak  it. 
It  was  pleasant  to  meet  the  honest  English  faces,  to 
recognize  the  English  fashions,  to  note  the  English 
walk;  and  if  these  were  oftener  present  than  their 
American  counterparts,  it  was  not  from  our  habitual 
minority,  but  from  our  occasional  sparsity  through 
the  panic  that  had  frightened  us  into  a  homekeeping 
foreign  to  our  natures. 

In  like  manner  our  hyphenated  nationalities  have 
the  Piazza  di  Spagna  for  their  own.  There  are  the 
two  English  book-stores  and  the  circulating  libraries, 
in  each  of  which  the  books  are  so  torn  and  dirty  that 
you  think  they  cannot  be  quite  so  bad  in  the  other  till 
you  try  it;  there  seems  nothing  for  it,  then,  but  to 

103 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

wash  and  iron  the  different  Tauchnitz  authors,  and 
afterward  darn  and  mend  them.  The  books  on  sale 
are,  of  course,  not  so  bad;  they  are  even  quite  clean; 
and  except  for  giving  out  on  the  points  of  interest 
where  you  could  most  wish  them  to  abound,  there  is 
nothing  in  them  to  complain  of.  There  is  less  than 
nothing  to  complain  of  in  the  tea-room  which  enjoys 
our  international  favor  except  that  at  the  most  psy 
chological  moment  of  the  afternoon  you  cannot  get  a 
table,  in  spite  of  the  teas  going  on  in  the  fashionable 
hotels  and  the  friendly  houses  everywhere.  The  toast 
is  exceptional;  the  muffins  so  far  from  home  are  at 
least  reminiscent  of  their  native  island;  the  tea  and 
butter  are  alike  blameless.  The  company,  to  the  eye 
of  the  friend  of  man,  is  still  more  acceptable,  for,  if 
the  Americans  have  dwindled,  the  English  have  in 
creased;  and  there  is  nothing  more  endearing  than 
the  sight  of  a  roomful  of  English  people  at  their  after 
noon  tea  in  a  strange  land.  ~No  type  seems  to  pre 
dominate;  there  are  bohemians  as  obvious  as  clerics; 
there  are  old  ladies  and  young,  alike  freshly  fair; 
there  are  the  white  beards  of  age  and  the  clean-shaven 
cheeks  of  youth  among  the  men ;  some  are  fashionable 
and  some  outrageously  not;  peculiarities  of  all  kinds 
abound  without  conflicting.  Some  talk,  frankly  aud 
ible,  and  others  are  frankly  silent,  but  a  deep,  wide 
purr,  tacit  or  explicit,  close  upon  a  muted  hymn  of 
thanksgiving,  in  that  assemblage  of  mutually  repellent 
personalities,  for  the  nonce  united,  would  best  denote 
the  universal  content. 

Hard  by  this  tea-room  there  is  a  public  elevator  by 
which  the  reader  will  no  doubt  rather  ascend  with 
me  than  climb  the  Spanish  Steps  without  me;  after 
the  first  time,  I  never  climbed  them.  The  elevator 
costs  but  ten  centimes,  and  I  will  pay  for  both;  there 

104 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEKS 

is  sometimes  drama  thrown  in  that  is  worth  twice  the 
money;  for  there  is  war,  more  or  less  roaring,  set  be 
tween  the  old  man  who  works  the  elevator  and  the 
young  man  who  sells  the  tickets  to  it.  The  law  is  that 
the  elevator  will  hold  only  eight  persons,  but  one 
memorable  afternoon  the  ticket  -  seller  insisted  upon 
giving  a  ticket  to  a  tall,  young  English  girl  who  formed 
an  unlawful  ninth.  The  elevator-man,  a  precisian  of 
the  old  school,  expelled  her ;  the  ticket-seller  came  for 
ward  and  reinstated  her;  again  the  elder  stood  upon 
the  letter  of  the  law;  again  the  younger  demanded  its 
violation.  The  Tuscan  tongue  in  their  Roman  mouths 
flew  into  unintelligibility,  while  the  poor  girl  was  put 
into  the  elevator  and  out  of  it;  and  the  respective 
parties  to  the  quarrel  were  enjoying  it  so  much  that 
it  might  never  have  ended  if  she  had  not  taken  the 
affair  into  her  own  hands.  She  finally  followed  the 
ticket-seller  back  to  his  desk,  to  which  he  retired  after 
each  act  of  the  melodrama,  and  threw  her  ticket  vio 
lently  down.  "  Here  is  your  ticket !"  she  said  in  Eng 
lish  so  severe  that  he  could  not  help  understanding 
and  cowering  before  it.  "  Give  me  back  my  money !" 
He  was  too  much  stupefied  by  her  decision  of  charac 
ter  to  speak;  and  he  returned  her  centimes  in  silence 
while  we  got  into  our  cage  and  mounted  to  the  top, 
and  the  elevator  -  man  furiously  repeated  to  himself 
his  side  of  the  recent  argument  all  the  way  up.  This 
did  not  prevent  his  touching  his  hat  to  each  of  us  in 
parting,  and  assuring  us  that  he  revered  us;  a  thing 
that  only  old-fashioned  Romans  seem  to  do  nowadays, 
in  the  supposed  decay  of  manners  which  the  comfort 
able  classes  everywhere  like  to  note  in  the  uncomfort 
able.  Then  some  ladies  of  our  number  went  off  on  a 
platform  across  the  house-tops  to  which  the  elevator 
had  brought  us,  as  if  they  expected  to  go  down  the 

105 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

chimneys  to  their  apartments;  and  the  rest  of  us  ex 
panded  into  the  Piazza  Trinita  de'  Monti ;  and  I  stopped 
to  lounge  against  the  uppermost  balustrade  of  the  Span 
ish  Steps. 

It  is  notable,  but  not  surprising,  how  soon  one  forms 
the  habit  of  this,  for,  seen  from  above,  the  Spanish 
Steps  are  only  less  enchanting  than  the  Spanish  Steps 
seen  from  below,  whence  they  are  absolutely  the  most 
charming  sight  in  the  world.  The  reader,  if  he  has 
nothing  better  than  a  post-card  (which  I  could  have 
bought  him  on  the  spot  for  fifty  a  franc),  knows  how 
the  successive  stairways  part  and  flow  downward  to 
right  and  left,  like  the  parted  waters  of  a  cascade,  and 
lose  themselves  at  the  bottom  in  banks  of  flowers.  ISTo 
lovelier  architectural  effect  was  ever  realized  from  a 
happy  fancy ;  but,  of  course,  the  pictorial  effect  is  rich 
er  from  below,  especially  from  the  Via  dei  Condotti, 
where  it  opens  into  the  Piazza  di  Spagna.  I  suppose 
there  must  be  hours  of  the  day,  and  certainly  there 
are  hours  of  the  night,  when  in  this  prospect  the  Steps 
have  not  the  sunset  on  them.  But  most  of  the  time 
they  have  the  sunset  on  them,  warm,  tender;  a  sunset 
that  begins  with  the  banks  of  daffodils  and  lilies  and 
anemones  and  carnations  and  roses  and  almond  blos 
soms,  keeping  the  downpour  of  the  marble  cascades 
from  flooding  the  piazza,  and  mounts,  mellowing  and 
yellowing,  up  their  gray  stone,  until  it  reaches  the 
Church  of  Trinita  de'  Monti  at  the  top. 

There  it  lingers,  I  should  say,  till  dawn,  bathing  the 
golden-brown  facade  in  an  effulgence  that  lifelong  ab 
sence  cannot  eclipse  when  once  it  has  blessed  your 
sight.  It  is  beauty  that  rather  makes  the  heart  ache, 
and  the  charm  of  the  Steps  from  above  is  something 
that  you  can  bear  better  if  yon  are  very,  very  worthy, 
or  have  the  conceit  of  feeling  yourself  so.  It  is  a 

106 


•Of  THE 

v  '.T  - 

OF 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEKS 

charm  that  imparts  itself  more  in  detail  and  is  less 
exclusively  the  effect  of  perpetual  sunset.  From  the 
parapet  against  which  you  lean  you  have  a  perfecter 
conception  of  the  architectural  form  than  you  get  from 
below,  and  you  are  never  tired  of  seeing  the  successive 
falls  of  the  Steps  dividing  themselves  and  then  com 
ing  together  on  the  broad  landings  and  again  parting 
and  coming  together. 

If  there  were  once  many  models,  male,  female,  and 
infant,  brigands,  peasants,  sages,  and  martyrs,  loung 
ing  on  the  Spanish  Steps,  as  it  seems  to  me  there  used 
to  be,  and  as  every  one  has  heard  say,  waiting  there 
for  the  artists  to  come  and  carry  them  off  to  their 
studios  and  transfer  them  to  their  canvases,  they  are  * 
now  no  longer  there  in  noticeable  number.  I  saw 
some  small  boys  in  steeple-crowned  soft  hats  and  short 
jackets,  with  their  little  legs  wound  round  with  the 
favorite  bandaging  of  brigands ;  and  some  mothers  suit 
able  for  Madonnas,  perhaps,  with  babes  at  the  breast; 
there  was  a  patriarchal  old  man  or  two,  ready  no 
doubt  to  pose  for  the  prophets,  or,  at  a  pinch,  for  yet 
more  celestial  persons ;  but  for  the  rest  the  Steps  were 
rather  given  up  to  flower-girls,  fruit-peddlers,  and  beg 
gars  pure  and  simple,  on  levels  distinctly  below  those 
infested  by  the  post-card  peddlers.  The  whole  neighbor 
hood  abounds  in  opportunities  for  charity,  and  at  the 
corner  of  the  Via  Sistina  there  is  a  one-legged  beggar 
who  professes  to  black  shoes  in  the  intervals  of  alms- 
taking,  and  who  early  made  me  his  prey.  If  some 
times  I  fancied  escaping  by  him  to  my  lounge  against 
the  parapet  of  the  steps,  he  joyously  overtook  me  with 
a  swiftness  of  which  few  two-legged  men  are  capable; 
he  wore  a  soldier's  cap,  and  I  hoped,  for  the  credit  of 
our  species,  that  he  had  lost  his  leg  in  battle,  but  I 
do  not  know. 

107 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

On  a  Sunday  evening  I  once  hung  tHere  a  long  time, 
watching  with  one  eye  the  people  who  were  coming  back 
from  their  promenade  on  the  Pincian  Hill,  and  with 
the  other  the  groups  descending  and  ascending  the 
Steps.  On  the  first  landing  below  me  there  was  a  boy 
who  gratified  me,  I  dare  say  unconsciously,  by  trying 
to  stand  on  his  hands;  and  a  little  dramatic  spectacle 
added  itself  to  this  feat  of  the  circus.  Two  pretty 
girls,  smartly  dressed  in  hats  and  gowns  exactly  alike, 
and  doubtless  sisters,  if  not  twins,  passed  down  to  the 
same  level.  One  was  with  a  handsome  young  officer, 
and  walked  staidly  beside  him,  as  if  content  with  her 
quality  of  captive  or  captor.  The  other  was  with  a 
civilian,  of  whom  she  was  apparently  not  sure.  Sud 
denly  she  ran  away  from  him  to  the  verge  of  the  next 
fall  of  steps,  possibly  to  show  him  how  charmingly 
she  was  dressed,  possibly  to  tempt  him  by  her  grace 
in  flight  to  follow  her  madly.  But  he  followed  sanely 
and  slowly,  and  she  waited  for  him  to  come  up,  in  a 
capricious  quiet,  as  if  she  had  not  done  anything  or 
meant  anything.  That  was  all ;  but  I  am  not  hard  to 
suit;  and  it  was  richly  enough  for  me. 

Her  little  comedy  came  to  its  denouement  just  under 
the  shoulder  of  the  rose-roofed  terrace  jutting  from 
a  lowish,  plainish  house  on  the  left,  beyond  certain 
palms  and  eucalyptus  -  trees.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
sacred  shrines  in  Rome,  for  it  was  in  this  house  that 
the  "  young  English  poet  whose  name  was  writ  in 
water  "  died  to  deathless  fame  three  or  fourscore  years 
ago.  It  is  the  Keats  house,  which  when  he  lived  in 
!  it  was  the  house  of  Severn  the  painter,  his  host  and 
friend.  I  had  visited  it  for  the  kind  sake  of  the  one 
and  the  dear  sake  of  the  others  when  I  first  visited 
Rome  in  1864;  and  it  was  one  of  the  earliest  stations 
of  my  second  pilgrimage.  It  is  now  in  form  for  any 

108 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

and  all  visitors,  but  the  day  I  went  it  had  not  yet  been 
put  in  its  present  simple  and  tasteful  keeping.  A  some 
what  shrill  and  scraping-voiced  matron  inquired  my 
pleasure  when  she  followed  me  into  the  ground-floor 
entrance  from  somewhere  without,  and  then,  under 
standing,  called  hor  young  daughter,  who  led  me  up 
to  the  room  where  Keats  mused  his  last  verse  and 
breathed  his  last  sigh.  It  is  a  very  little  room,  looking 
down  over  the  Spanish  Steps,  with  their  dike  of  bloom, 
across  the  piazza  to  the  narrow  stretch  of  the  Via  del 
Babuino.  I  must  have  stood  in  it  with  Severn  and 
heard  him  talk  of  Keats  and  his  ultimate  days  and 
hours;  for  I  remember  some  such  talk,  but  not  the 
details  of  it.  He  was  a  very  gentle  old  man  and  fond 
ly  proud  of  his  goodness  to  the  poor  dying  poet,  as  he 
well  might  be,  and  I  was  glad  to  be  one  of  the  many 
Americans  who,  he  said,  came  to  grieve  with  him  for 
the  dead  poet. 

Now,  on  my  later  visit,  it  was  a  cold,  rainy  day,  and 
it  was  chill  within  the  house  and  without,  and  I  im 
puted  my  weather  to  the  time  of  Keats's  sojourn,  and 
thought  of  him  sitting  by  his  table  there  in  that  bare, 
narrow,  stony  room  and  coughing  at  the  dismal  out 
look.  Afterward  I  saw  the  whole  place  put  in  order 
and  warmed  by  a  generous  stove,  for  people  who  came 
to  see  the  Keats  and  Shelley  collections  of  books  and 
pictures ;  but  still  the  sense  of  that  day  remains.  The 
young  girl  sympathized  with  my  sympathy,  and  wished 
to  find  a  rose  for  me  in  the  trellis  through  which  the 
rain  dripped.  She  could  not,  and  I  suggested  that 
there  would  be  roses  in  the  spring.  "  No,"  she  per 
sisted,  "  sometimes  it  makes  them  in  the  winter,"  but 
I  had  to  come  away  through  the  reeking  streets  without 
one. 

When  it  rains,  it  rains  easily  in  Borne.     But  the 

109 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

weather  was  divine  the  evening  I  looked  one  of  my 
latest  looks  down  on  the  Spanish  Steps.  The  sun 
had  sunk  rather  wanly  beyond  the  city,  but  a  cheer 
ful  light  of  electrics  shone  up  at  me  from  the  Via 
dei  Condotti.  I  stood  and  thought  of  as  much  as  I 
could  summon  from  the  past,  and  I  was  strongest,  I 
do  not  know  why,  with  the  persecutions  of  the  early 
Christians.  Presently  a  smell  of  dinner  came  from 
the  hotels  around  and  the  houses  below,  and  I  was 
reminded  to  go  home  to  my  own  table  d'hote.  My  one- 
legged  beggar  seemed  to  have  gone  to  his,  and  I  escaped 
him;  but  I  was  intercepted  by  the  sight  of  an  old 
woman  asleep  over  her  store  of  matches.  She  was  not 
wakened  by  the  fall  of  my  ten-centime  piece  in  her 
tray,  but  the  boy  drowsing  beside  her  roused  himself, 
and  roused  her  to  the  dreamy  expression  of  a  gratitude 
quite  out  of  scale  with  my  alms. 


v 

AN   EFFORT   TO   BE   HONEST   WITH    ANTIQUITY 

My  visit  to  the  Roman  Forum  when  the  Genius  Loci 
verified  to  my  ignorance  and  the  intelligence  of  my 
companions  the  well-conjectured  site  of  the  Temple  of 
Jupiter  Stator  was  not  the  first  nor  yet  the  second 
visit  I  had  paid  the  place.  There  had  been  inter 
mediate  mornings  when  I  met  two  friends  there,  in 
definitely  more  instructed,  with  whom  I  sauntered 
from  point  to  point,  preying  upon  their  knowledge 
for  my  emotion  concerning  each.  Information  is  an 
excellent  thing — in  others;  and  but  for  these  friends 
I  should  not  now  be  able  to  say  that  this  mouldering 
heap  of  brickwork,  rather  than  that,  was  Julius  Caesar's 

110 


SEPULCHRE    OF    ROMULUS,    FORUM 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

house;  or  just  where  it  was  that  Antony  made  his 
oration  over  the  waxen  effigy  which  served  him  for 
Cesar's  body.  They  helped  me  realize  how  the  busi 
ness  life  and  largely  the  social  life  of  Kome  centred 
in  the  Forum,  but  spared  me  so  much  detail  that  my 
fancy  could  play  about  among  its  vanished  edifices 
without  inconvenience  from  the  clutter  of  shops  and 
courts  and  monuments  which  were  ultimately  to  hem 
it  in  and  finally  to  stifle  it.  They  knew  their  Forum 
so  well  that  they  could  not  only  gratify  any  curiosity 

/  I  had,  but  could  supply  me  with  curiosity  when  I  had 
none.  For  the  moment  I  was  aware  that  this  spot  or 
that,  though  it  looked  so  improbable,  was  the  scene  of 
deeds  which  will  reverberate  forever;  they  taught  me 

i/'  to  be  tolerant  of  what  I  had  too  lightly  supposed  fables 
as  serious  traditions  closely  verging  on  facts.  I  learned 
to  believe  again  that  the  wolf  suckled  Romulus  and 
Remus,  because  she  had  her  den  no  great  way  off  on 
the  Palatine,  and  that  Romulus  himself  had  really 
lived,  since  he  had  died  and  was  buried  in  the  Forum, 
where  they  showed  me  his  tomb,  or  as  much  of  it  as 
I  could  imagine  in  the  sullen  little  cellar  so  called. 
They  also  showed  me  the  rostrum  where  the  Roman 
orators  addressed  the  mass-meetings  of  the  republican 
times,  and  they  showed  me  the  lake,  or  the  puddle  left 
of  it,  into  which  Curtius  (or  one  of  three  heroes  of 
the  name)  leaped  at  an  earlier  day  as  a  specific  for 
the  pestilence  which  the  medical  science  of  the  period 
had  failed  to  control.  In  our  stroll  about  the  place 
we  were  joined  by  one  of  the  several  cats  living  in 
the  Forum,  which  offered  us  collectively  its  acquaint 
ance,  as  if  wishing  to  make  us  feel  at  home.  It  joined 
us  and  it  quitted  us  from  time  to  time,  as  the  whim 
took  it,  but  it  did  not  abandon  us  wholly  till  we 

showed  a  disposition  to  believe  in  that  lake  of  Curtius, 

ill 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

so  called  after  those  three  public-spirited  heroes,  the 
first  being  a  foreigner.  Then  the  cat,  which  had  more 
than  once  stretched  itself  as  if  bored,  turned  from  us 
in  contempt  and  went  and  lay  down  in  a  sunny  corner 
near  the  tomb  of  Romulus,  and  fell  asleep. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  my  reader  does  not  know, 
as  lately  I  did  not,  that  the  Roman  Forum  is  but 
one  of  several  forums  connected  with  it  by  ways 
long  centuries  since  buried  fathoms  deep  and  built 
upon  many  stories  high.  But  I  am  now  able  to  assure 
him  that  in  the  whole  region  between  the  Roman 
Forum  and  the  Forum  of  Trajan,  which  were  former 
ly  opened  into  each  other  by  the  removal  of  a  hill  as 
\/  tall  as  the  top  of  Trajan's  Column,  you  pass  over  other 
forums  hidden  beneath  your  feet  or  wheels.  You  can 
not  be  stayed  there,  however,  by  the  wonders  which 
archaeology  will  yet  reveal  in  them  (for  archeology  has 
its  relentless  eye  upon  every  inch  of  the  ground  above 
them),  but  you  will  certainly  pause  at  the  Forum  of 
Trajan,  where  archeology,  as  it  is  in  Commendatore 
Boni,  has  had  its  way  already.  In  fact,  until  his  work 
in  the  Roman  Forum  is  finished,  the  Forum  of  Trajan 
must  remain  his  greatest  achievement,  and  the  sculpt 
ured  column  of  the  great  emperor  must  serve  equally 
as  the  archaeologist's  monument.  I  do  not  remember 
why  in  the  old  time  I  should  have  kept  coming  to  look 
at  that  column  and  study  the  sculptured  history  of 
Trajan's  campaigns,  toiling  around  it  to  its  top.  I 
think  one  could  then  get  close  to  its  base,  as  now  one 
cannot,  what  with  the  deepening  of  the  Forum  to  its 
antique  level  and  the  enclosure  of  the  whole  space  with 
an  iron  rail.  The  area  below  is  free  only  to  a  large 
company  of  those  cats  which  seem  to  have  their  dwell 
ing  among  all  the  ruins  and  restorations  of  ancient 
Rome.  People  come  to  feed  the  Trajan  cats  with  the 

112 


TRAJAN  S    FORUM    AND    COLUMN 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

fish  sold  near  by  for  the  purpose,  and  one  morning,  in 
pausing  to  view  his  column  from  the  respectful  dis 
tance  I  had  to  keep,  I  counted  no  less  than  thirteen 
of  his  cats  in  his  forum.  They  were  of  every  age 
and  color,  but  much  more  respectable  in  appearance 
than  the  cats  of  the  Pantheon,  which  have  no  such 
sunny  expanse  as  that  forum  for  their  quarters,  but 
only  a  very  damp  corner  beside  the  temple,  and  seem 
to  have  suffered  in  their  looks  and  health  from  the 
situation.  It  was  afterward  with  dismay  that  I 
realized  the  fatal  number  of  the  Trajan  cats  coming 
to  their  breakfast  that  morning  so  unconscious  of  evil 
omen  in  the  figure;  but  as  there  are  probably  no  sta 
tistics  of  mortality  among  the  cats  of  Rome,  I  shall 
never  know  whether  any  of  the  thirteen  has  rendered 
up  one  of  their  hundred  and  seventeen  lives. 

However,  if  I  allowed  myself  to  go  on  about  the 
cats  of  Rome,  either  ancient  or  modern,  there  would 
be  no  end.  For  instance,  in  a  statuary's  shop  in  the 
Via  Sistina  there  is  a  large  yellow  cat,  which  I  one 
day  saw  dressing  the  hair  of  the  statuary's  boy.  It 
performed  this  office  with  a  very  motherly  anxiety, 
seated  on  the  top  of  a  high  rotary  table  where  ordi 
narily  the  statuary  worked  at  his  carving,  and  pausing 
from  time  to  time,  as  it  licked  the  boy's  thick,  black 
locks,  to  get  the  effect  of  its  labors.  On  other  days  or 
at  other  hours  it  slept  under  the  table-top,  unvexed  by 
the  hammering  that  went  on  over  its  head.  Even  in 
Rome,  where  cats  are  so  abundant,  it  was  a  notable  cat. 

If  you  visit  the  Roman  Forum  in  the  morning  you 
are  only  too  apt  to  be  hurried  home  by  remembrance 
of  the  lunch-hour.  That,  at  any  rate,  was  my  case,  but 
I  was  not  so  hungry  that  I  would  not  pause  on  my 
way  hotelward  at  what  used  to  be  the  Temple  of 
Vesta  in  my  earlier  time,  but  which  is  now  super- 

8  113 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEKS 

seded  by  the  more  authentic  temple  in  the  Forum.  I 
had  long  revered  the  first  in  its  former  quality,  and 
I  now  paid  it  the  tribute  of  unwilling  renunciation. 
It  is  so  nearly  a  perfect  relic  of  ancient  Rome  and 
so  much  more  impressive,  in  its  all  but  unbroken 
peristyle,  than  the  later  but  recumbent  claimant  to  its 
identity  that  I  am  sure  the  owners  of  the  little  bronze 
or  alabaster  copies  of  it  scattered  over  the  world  must 
share  my  pious  reluctance.  The  custodian  is  still  very 
proud  of  it,  and  would  have  lectured  me  upon  it  much 
longer  than  I  let  him ;  as  it  was,  he  kept  me  while  he 
could  cast  a  blazing  copy  of  the  Popolo  Romano  into 
the  cavernous  crypt  under  it,  apparently  to  show  me 
how  deep  it  was.  He  may  have  had  other  reasons ;  but 
in  any  case  I  urge  the  traveller  to  allow  him  to  do  it, 
for  it  costs  no  additional  fee,  and  it  seems  to  do  him 
so  much  good.  If  it  is  not  very  near  lunch-time,  let 
the  traveller  look  well  about  him  in  the  dusty  little 
piazza  there,  for  the  Temple  of  Fortune,  with  its 
bruised  but  beautiful  fagade,  is  hard  by,  as  much 
in  the  form  that  Servius  Tullius  gave  it  as  could  well 
be  expected  after  all  this  time. 

Perhaps  the  Circus  of  Marcellus  is  on  the  traveller's 
way  home  to  lunch ;  but  he  will  always  be  passing  the 
segment  of  its  arcaded  wall,  filled  in  with  mediaeval 
masonry;  and  he  need  not  stop,  especially  if  he  has 
his  cab  by  the  hour,  for  there  is  nothing  more  to  be 
seen  of  the  circus.  A  glimpse,  through  overhanging 
foliage,  of  the  steps  to  the  Campidoglio,  with  Castor 
and  Pollux  beside  their  horses  at  top,  may  be  a  fort 
unate  accident  of  his  course.  If  this  happens  it  will 
help  to  rehabilitate  for  him  the  Rome  of  the  paganism 
to  which  these  divinities  remained  true  through  all 
temptations  to  Judaize  during  the  unnumbered  cen 
turies  of  their  sojourn,  forgotten,  in  the  Ghetto.  It 

114 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

is  hardly  possible  that  his  glimpse  will  include  even 
the  top  of  Marcus  Aurelius's  head  where  he  sits  his 
bronze  charger — an  extremely  fat  one — so  majestically 
in  the  piazza  beyond  those  brothers,  as  if  conscious  of 
being  the  most  noble  equestrian  statue  which  has  rid 
den  down  to  us  from  antiquity. 

A  more  purposed  sight  of  all  this  will,  of  course, 
supply  any  defects  of  chance,  though  I  myself  always 
liked  chance  encounters  with  the  monuments  of  the 
past.  I  had  constantly  cherished  a  remembrance  of 
the  nobly  beautiful  fagade  which  is  all  that  is  left  of 
the  Temple  of  Neptune,  and  I  meant  deliberately  to 
revisit  it  if  I  could  find  out  where  it  was.  A  kind 
fortuity  befriended  me  when  one  day,  driving  through 
the  little  piazza  where  it  lurks  behind  the  Piazza  Co- 
lonna,  I  looked  up,  and  there,  in  awe  -  striking  pro 
cession,  stood  the  mighty  antique  columns  sustaining 
the  entablature  of  mediaeval  stucco  with  their  fluted 
marble.  I  could  not  say  why  their  poor,  defaced,  im 
mortal  grandeur  should  have  always  so  affected  me, 
for  I  do  not  know  that  my  veneration  was  due  it  more 
than  many  other  fragments  of  the  past;  but  no  arch 
or  pillar  of  them  all  seems  so  impressive,  so  pathetic. 
To  make  the  reader  the  greatest  possible  confidence,  I 
will  own  that  I  passed  five  times  through  the  Piazza 
Colonna  to  my  tailor's  in  the  next  piazza  (at  Rome 
your  tailor  wishes  you  to  try  on  till  you  have  almost 
worn  your  new  clothes  out  in  the  ordeal)  before  I 
realized  that  the  Column  of  Marcus  Aurelius  was  not 
the  more  famous  Column  of  Trajan.  There  is,  in  fact, 
a  strong  family  likeness  between  these  columns,  both 
being  bandaged  round  from  bottom  to  top  with  the 
tale  of  the  imperial  achievements  and  having  a  gen 
eral  effect  in  common ;  but  there  is  no  brother  or  cousin 

to  the  dignity  of  that  melancholy  yet  vigorous  ruin 

115 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEKS 

of  the  Temple  of  Neptune,  or  anything  that  resembles 
it  in  the  whole  of  ancient  Rome.  It  survives  having 
been  a  custom-house  and  being  a  stock-exchange  with 
out  apparent  ignominy,  while  one  feels  an  incongruity, 
to  say  the  least,  in  the  Column  of  Marcus  Aurelius 
looking  down  on  the  sign  of  the  Mutual  Life  Insurance 
Company  of  New  York.  Whether  this  is  worse  than 
for  the  Palazzo  di  Yenezia  to  confront  the  American 
Express  Company  where  it  is  housed  on  the  other  side 
of  the  piazza  I  cannot  say.  What  I  can  say  is  that 
I  believe  the  Temple  of  Neptune  would  have  been 
superior  to  either  fate;  though  I  may  be  mistaken. 

Ruin,  nearly  everywhere  in  Rome,  has  to  be  very 
patient  of  the  environment;  and  even  the  monuments 
of  the  past  which  are  in  comparatively  good  repair 
have  not  always  the  keeping  that  the  past  would  prob 
ably  have  chosen  for  them.  One  that  suffers  as  little 
as  any,  if  not  the  very  least,  is  the  Pantheon,  on  whose 
glorious  porch  you  are  apt  to  come  suddenly,  either 
from  a  narrow  street  beside  it  or  across  its  piazza,  be 
yond  the  fountain  fringed  with  post-card  boys  and  their 
bargains.  In  spite  of  them,  the  sight  of  the  temple 
does  mightily  lift  the  heart ;  and  though  you  may  have 
had,  as  I  had,  forty-odd  years  to  believe  in  it,  you 
must  waver  in  doubt  of  its  reality  whenever  you  see 
it.  It  seems  too  great  to  be  true,  standing  there  in 
its  immortal  sublimity,  the  temple  of  all  the  gods  by 
pagan  creation,  and  all  the  saints  by  Christian  con 
secration,  and  challenging  your  veneration  equally  as 
classic  or  catholic.  It  is  worthy  the  honor  ascribed 
to  it  in  the  very  latest  edition  of  Murray's  Handbook 
as  "  the  best-preserved  monument  of  ancient  Rome  " ; 
worthy  the  praise  of  the  fastidious  and  difficult  Hare 
as  "  the  most  perfect  pagan  building  in  the  city " ; 
worthy  whatever  higher  laud  my  unconsulted  Baede- 

116 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

ker  bestows  upon  it.  But  I  speak  of  the  outside;  and 
let  not  the  traveller  grieve  if  he  comes  upon  it  at  the 
noon  hour,  as  I  did  last,  and  finds  its  vast  bronze  doors 
closing  against  him  until  three  o'clock ;  there  are  many 
sadder  things  in  life  than  not  seeing  the  interior  of  the 
Pantheon.  The  gods  are  all  gone,  and  the  saints  are 
gone  or  going,  for  the  State  has  taken  the  Pantheon 
from  the  Church  and  is  making  it  a -national  mausoleum. 
Victor  Emmanuel  the  Great  and  Umberto  the  Kind 
already  lie  there;  but  otherwise  the  wide  Cyclopean 
eye  of  the  opening  in  the  roof  of  the  rotunda  looks 
down  upon  a  vacancy  which  even  your  own  name,  as 
written  in  the  visitors'  book,  in  the  keeping  of  a  sol 
emn  beadle,  does  not  suffice  to  fill,  and  which  the  lin 
gering  side  altars  scarcely  relieve. 

I  proved  the  fact  by  successive  visits;  but,  after 
all  my  content  with  the  outside  of  the  Pantheon,  I 
came  to  think  that  what  you  want  in  Rome  is  not  the 
best-preserved  monument,  not  the  most  perfect  pagan 
building,  but  the  most  ruinous  ruin  you  can  get.  I 
y  am  not  sure  that  you  get  this  in  the  mouldering  memo 
rials  of  the  past  on  the  Palatine  Hill,  but  you  get 
something  more  nearly  like  it  than  anything  I  can 
think  of  at  the  moment.  In  that  imperial  and  patrician 
and  plutocratic  residential  quarter  you  see,  if  you  are 
of  the  moderately  moneyed  middle  class,  what  the 
pride  of  life  must  always  come  to  when  it  has  its 
way;  and  your  consolation  is  full  if  you  pause  to  re 
flect  how  some  day  Fifth  Avenue  and  the  two  mill 
ionaire  blocks  eastward  will  be  as  the  Palatine  now  is. 

Riches  and  power  are  of  the  same  make  in  every 
time,  though  they  may  wear  different  faces  from  age 
to  age ;  and  it  will  be  well  for  the  very  wealthy  mem 
bers  of  our  smart  set  to  keep  this  fact  in  mind  when 
they  visit  that  huge  sepulchre  of  human  vainglory. 

117 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

But  I  will  not  pretend  that  I  did  so  myself  that 
matchless  April  morning  when  I  climbed  over  the 
ruins  of  the  Palatine  and  found  the  sun  rather  sick- 
eningly  hot  there.  That  is  to  say,  it  was  so  in  the 
open  spaces  which  were  respectively  called  the  house 
of  this  emperor  and  that,  the  temple  of  this  deity  or 
that,  whose  divine  honors  half  the  Caesars  shared;  in 
the  Stadium,  beside  the  Lupercal,  and  the  like.  The 
Lupercal  was  really  imaginable  as  the  home  of  the 
patroness  wolf  of  Rome,  being  a  wild  knot  of  hill  fitly 
overgrown  with  brambles  and  bushes,  and  looking  very 
probably  the  spot  where  Caesar  would  thrice  have  re- 
fused  the  crown  that  Antony  offered  him.  But  for 
the  rest,  one  ruin  might  very  well  pass  for  another;  a 
temple  with  a  broken  statue  and  the  stumps  of  a  few 
columns  could  very  easily  deceive  any  one  but  an 
archaeologist.  Fortunately  we  had  the  charming  com 
panionship  of  one  of  the  most  amiable  of  archaeologists, 
who  was  none  the  less  learned  for  being  a  woman ;  and 
she  made  even  me  dimly  aware  of  identities  which 
would  else  have  been  lost  upon  me.  To  be  sure,  I 
think  that  without  help  I  should  have  known  the 
Stadium  when  I  came  to  it,  because  it  seemed  studied 
from  that  in  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  and,  though 
it  was  indefinitely  more  dilapidated,  was  so  obviously 
meant  for  the  same  sorts  of  games  and  races.  I  do 
not  know  but  it  was  larger  than  the  Cambridge  Sta 
dium,  though  I  will  not  speak  so  confidently  of  its 
size  as  of  that  deathly  cold  in  the  vaults  and  subter 
ranean  passages  by  which  we  found  our  way  to  the 
burning  upper  air  out  of  the  foundations  and  base 
ments  of  palaces  and  temples  and  libraries  and  theatres 
that  had  ceased  to  be. 

One  of  the  most  comfortable  of  these  galleries  was 
that  in  which  Caligula  was  justly  done  to  death,  or, 

118 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

if  not  Caligula,  it  was  some  other  tyrant  who  deserved 
as  little  to  live.  But  for  our  guide  I  should  not  have 
remembered  his  slaughter  there,  and  how  much  satis 
faction  it  had  given  me  when  I  first  read  of  it  in 
Goldsmith's  History  of  Rome;  and  really  you  must 
not  acquaint  yourself  too  early  with  such  facts,  for 
you  forget  them  just  when  you  could  turn  them  to 
account.  History  is  apt  to  forsake  you  in  the  scene 
of  it  and  come  lagging  back  afterward;  and  you  can 
not  hope  always  to  have  an  archaeologist  at  your  el 
bow  to  remind  you  of  things  you  have  forgotten  or 
possibly  have  not  known.  Suetonius,  Plutarch,  De 
Quincey,  Gibbon,  these  are  no  bad  preparations  for 
a  visit  to  the  Palatine,  but  it  is  better  to  have  read 
them  yesterday  than  the  day  before  if  you  wish  to 
draw  suddenly  upon  them  for  associations  with  any 
specific  spot,  If  I  were  to  go  again  to  the  Palatine, 
I  would  take  care  to  fortify  myself  with  such  struct 
ural  facts  from  Hare's  Walks  in  Rome,  or  from  Mur-  I 
ray,  or  even  from  Baedeker,  as  that  it  was  the  home  of 
Augustus  and  Tiberius,  Domitian  and  Nero  and  Calig 
ula  and  Septimius  Severus  and  Germanicus,  and  a 
very  few  of  their  next  friends,  and  that  it  radically 
differed  from  the  Forum  in  being  exclusively  private 
and  personal  to  the  residents,  while  that  was  inclusive 
ly  public  and  common  to  the  whole  world.  I  strongly 
urge  the  reader  to  fortify  himself  on  this  point,  for 
otherwise  he  will  miss  such  significance  as  the  place 
may  possibly  have  for  him.  Let  him  not  trust  to  his 
impressions  from  his  general  reading;  there  is  nothing 
so  treacherous;  he  may  have  general  reading  enough 
to  sink  a  ship,  but  unless  he  has  a  cargo  taken  newly 
on  board  he  will  find  himself  tossing  without  ballast 
on  those  billowy  slopes  of  the  Palatine,  where  he  will 
vainly  try  for  definite  anchorage. 


ltov 
119 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

The  billowy  effect  of  the  Palatine,  inconvenient  to 
the  explorer,  is  its  greatest  charm  from  afar,  in  what 
ever  morning  or  evening  light,  or  sun  or  rain,  you  get 
its  soft,  brownish,  greenish,  velvety  masses.  Distance 
on  it  is  best,  and  distance  in  time  as  well  as  space. 
If  you  can  believe  the  stucco  reconstruction  opposite  the 
Forum  gate,  ruin  has  been  even  kinder  to  the  Palatine 
than  to  the  Forum,  with  which  it  was  equally  ugly  when 
in  repair,  if  taken  in  the  altogether,  however  beautiful 
in  detail.  As  you.  see  it  in  that  reproduction,  it  is  a 
horror,  and  a  very  vulgar  horror,  such  a  horror  as  only 
unlimited  wealth  and  uncontrolled  power  can  produce. 

*  If  you  will  think  of  individualism  gone  mad,  and  each 
successive  personality  crushing  out  and  oversloughing 
some  other,  without  that  regard  for  proportion  and 
propriety  which  only  the  sense  of  a  superior  collective 
right  can  inspire,  you  will  imagine  the  Palatine. 
Mount  Morris,  at  One  Hundred  and  Twenty  -  fifth 
Street,  if  unscrupulously  built  upon  by  the  multi 
millionaires  thronging  to  ISTew  York  and  seeking  to 
house  themselves  each  more  splendidly  and  spaciously 
than  the  other,  would  offer  a  suggestion  in  miniature 
of  what  the  Palatine  seems  to  have  been  like  in  its 
glory.  But  the  ruined  Mount  Morris,  even  allowing 

.  for  the  natural  growth  of  the  landscape  in  two  thou 
sand  years,  could  show  no  such  prospect  twenty  cen 
turies  hence  as  we  got  that  morning  from  a  bit  of 
wilding  garden  near  the  Convent  of  San  Bonaventura, 
on  the  brow  of  the  Palatine.  Some  snowy  tops  pil 
lowed  themselves  on  the  utmost  horizon,  and  across 
the  Campagna  the  broken  aqueducts  stalked  and  fell 
down  and  stumbled  to  their  legs  again.  The  Baths 
of  Caracalla  bulked  up  in  rugged,  monstrous  frag 
ments,  and  then  in  the  foreground,  filling  the  whole 
eye,  the  Colosseum  rose  and  stood,  and  all  Rome 

120 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

sank  round  it.  The  Forum  lay  deep  under  us, 
/•  vainly  struggling  with  the  broken  syllables  of  its 
demolition  to  impart  a  sense  of  its  past,  and  at  our 
feet  in  that  bit  of  garden  where  the  roses  were  bloom 
ing  and  the  plum-trees  were  blowing  and  the  birds  were 
singing,  there  stretched  itself  in  the  grass  a  fallen 
pillar  wreathed  with  the  folds  of  a  marble  serpent, 
the  emblem  of  the  oldest  worship  under  the  sun,  as 
I  was  proud  to  remember  without  present  help.  It 
was  the  same  immemorial,  universal  faith  which  the 
Mound  Builders  of  our  own  West  symbolized  in  the 
huge  earthen  serpents  they  shaped  uncounted  ages  be 
fore  the  red  savages  came  to  wonder  at  them,  and 
doubtless  it  had  been  welcomed  by  Rome  in  her  large, 
loose,  cynical  toleration,  together  with  cults  which,  like 
that  of  Isis  and  Osiris,  were  fads  of  yesterday  beside 
it.  Somehow  it  gave  the  humanest  touch  in  the  com- 
/  plex  impression  of  the  overhistoried  scene.  It  made 
one  feel  very  old,  yet  very  young — old  with  the  age 
and  young  with  the  youth  of  the  world — and  very 
much  at  home. 

VI 
PERSONAL  RELATIONS  WITH  THE  PAST 

I  was  myself  part  of  the  antiquity  with  which  I  have 
J  been  trying  to  be  honest ;  and,  though  my  date  was  no 
earlier  than  the  seventh  decade  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury,  still  so  many  and  such  cataclysmal  changes  had 
passed  over  Rome  since  my  time  that  I  was,  as  far  as 
concerned  my  own  consciousness,  practically  of  the 
period  of  the  Pantheon,  say.  The  Pantheon,  in  fact, 
was  among  my  first  associations  with  Rome.  I  lodged 
very  near  it,  in  the  next  piazza,  so  that,  if  we  were  not 

contemporaries,  we  were  companions,  and  I  could  not 

121 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

go  out  of  my  hotel  to  look  up  a  more  permanent  sojourn 
without  passing  by  it.  Perhaps  I  wished  to  pass  by  it, 
and  might  really  have  found  my  way  to  the  Corso  with 
out  the  Pantheon's  help. 

I  have  no  longer  a  definite  idea  why  I  should  have 
made  my  sojourn  in  the  very  simple  and  modest  little 
street  called  Via  del  Gambero,  which  runs  along  be 
hind  the  Corso  apparently  till  it  gets  tired  and  then 
stops.  But  very  possibly  it  was  because  the  Via  del 
Gambero  was  so  simple  and  modest  that  I  chose  it  as 
the  measure  of  my  means;  or  possibly  I  may  have 
heard  of  the  apartment  I  took  in  it  from  wayfarers 
passing  through  Venice,  where  I  then  lived,  and  able 
to  commend  it  from  their  own  experience  of  it;  peo 
ple  in  that  kind  day  used  to  do  such  things.  However 
it  was,  I  took  the  apartment,  and  found  it,  though 
small,  apt  for  me,  as  Ariosto  said  of  his  house,  and  I 
dwelt  in  it  with  my  family  a  month  or  more  in  great 
comfort  and  content.  In  fact,  it  seemed  to  us  the 
pleasantest  apartment  in  Rome,  where  the  apartments 
of  passing  strangers  were  not  so  proud  under  Pius  IX. 
as  they  are  under  Victor  Emmanuel  III.  I  do  not 
know  why  it  should  have  been  called  the  Street  of 
the  Lobster,  but  it  may  have  been  in  an  obscure  play 
of  the  fancy  with  the  notion  of  a  backward  gait  in  it 
that  I  came  to  believe  that,  in  the  many  improvements 
which  had  befallen  Eome,  Via  del  Gambero  had  dis 
appeared.  Destroyed,  some  traveller  from  antique 
lands  had  told  me,  I  dare  say;  obliterated,  wiped  out 
by  the  march  of  municipal  progress.  At  any  rate,  I 
had  so  long  resigned  the  hope  of  revisiting  the  quiet 
scene  that  when  I  revisited  Eome  last  winter,  after 
the  flight  of  ages,  and  one  day  found  myself  in  a  shop 
on  the  Corso,  it  was  from  something  like  a  hardy  irony 
that  I  asked  the  shopman  if  a  street  called  Via  del 

122 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

Gambero  still  existed  in  that  neighborhood.  I  said 
that  I  had  once  lodged  in  it  forty-odd  years  before; 
but  I  believed  it  had  been  demolished.  Not  at  all, 
the  shopman  said;  it  was  just  behind  his  place;  and 
what  was  the  number  of  the  house?  I  told  him,  and 
he  laughed  for  joy  in  being  able  to  do  me  a  pleasure; 
me,  a  stranger  from  the  strange  land  of  sky-scratchers 
( gratiacieti) f  as  the  Italians  not  inadequately  translate 
sky-scrapers.  If  I  would  favor  him  through  his  back 
shop  he  would  show  me  how  close  I  was  upon  it;  and 
from  his  threshold  he  pointed  to  the  corner  twenty 
yards  off,  which,  when  I  had  turned  it,  left  me  almost 
at  my  own  door. 

In  that  transmuted  Rome  Via  del  Gambero,  at  least, 
was  wholly  unchanged,  and  there  was  not  a  wrinkle 
in  the  front  of  the  house  where  we  had  sojourned  so 
comfortably,  so  contentedly,  in  our  incredible  youth. 
I  had  not  quite  the  courage  to  ring  and  ask  if  we  were 
at  home;  but,  standing  across  the  way  and  looking  up 
at  the  window,  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  might  have  seen 
my  own  young  face  peering  out  in  a  somewhat  sus 
picious  question  of  the  old  eyes  staring  up  so  fixedly 
at  it.  Who  was  I,  and  what  was  I  doing  there  ?  Was 
I  waiting,  hanging  idly  about,  to  see  the  Armenian 
archbishop  coming  to  carry  my  other  self  in  his  red 
coach  to  the  Sistine  Chapel,  where  we  were  to  hear 
Pius  IX.  say  mass  ?  There  was  no  harm  in  my  hang 
ing  about,  but  the  street  was  narrow  and  there  was  a 
chance  of  my  being  ground  up  by  some  passing  cart 
against  the  wall  there  behind  me  if  I  was  not  careful. 
I  could  not  tell  my  proud  young  double  that  we  were 
one,  and  that  I  was  going  in  the  archbishop's  red  coach 
as  well;  he  would  never  have  believed  it  of  my  gray 
hairs  and  sunken  figure.  I  could  not  even  ask  him 
what  had  become  of  the  grocer  near  by,  whom  I  used 

123 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

to  get  some  homely  supplies  of,  perhaps  eggs  or  or 
anges,  or  the  like,  when  I  came  out  in  the  December 
mornings,  and  who,  when  I  said  that  it  was  very  cold, 
would  own  that  it  was  un  poco  rigidctto,  or  a  little  bit 
stiffish.  The  ice  on  the  pavement,  not  clean-swept  as 
now,  but  slopped  and  frozen,  had  been  witness  of  that ; 
the  ice  was  gone  and  the  grocer  with  it;  and  where 
really  was  I  ?  At  the  window  up  there,  or  leaning 
against  the  apse  of  the  church  opposite  ?  What  church 
was  it,  anyway?  I  never  knew;  I  never  asked.  Why 
should  I  insist  upon  a  common  identity  with  a  man  of 
twenty-seven  to  whom  my  threescore  and  ten  could  only 
bring  perplexity,  to  say  the  least,  and  very  likely  vexa 
tion  ?  I  went  away  from  Via  del  Gambero,  where  the 
piety  of  the  reader  will  seek  either  of  myselves  in  vain. 
In  my  earlier  date  one  used  to  see  the  red  legs  of  the 
French  soldiers  about  the  Roman  streets,  and  the  fierce 
faces  of  the  French  officers,  fierce  as  if  they  felt  them 
selves  wrongfully  there  and  were  braving  it  out  against 
their  consciences.  Very  likely  they  had  no  conscience 
about  it;  they  had  come  there  over  the  dead  body  of 
the  Roman  Republic  at  the  will  of  their  rascal  presi 
dent,  and  they  were  staying  there  by  the  will  of  their 
rascal  emperor,  to  keep  on  his  throne  the  pope  from 
whom  the  Italians  had  hoped  for  unity  and  liberty. 
No  one  is  very  much  to  blame  for  anything,  I  suppose, 
and  very  likely  Pius  IX.  had  not  voluntarily  disap 
pointed  his  countrymen,  who  may  have  expected  too 
much.  But  then  the  French  had  been  there  fifteen 
years,  and  were  to  be  there  another  fifteen  years  yet. 
ISTow  they  are  gone,  with  the  archbishop's  red  coach, 
and  the  complaisant  grocer,  and  the  young  man  of 
twenty-seven  in  Via  del  Gambero,  and  the  rest  of  the 
things  that  the  sun  looked  on  and  will  look  on  the  like 
of  again,  no  doubt,  in  our  monotonous  round  of  him. 

124 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

To-day,  instead  of  the  red  legs  of  the  French  soldiers, 
you  see  the  blue  legs  of  the  Italian  soldiers,  and  in 
stead  of  the  fierce  faces  of  their  officers,  the  serious, 
intelligent,  mostly  spectacled  faces  of  the  Italian  of 
ficers,  in  sweeping  cloaks  of  tender  blue  verging  on 
lavender.  They  are  soldierly  men  none  the  less  for 
their  gentler  aspect,  and  perhaps  something  the  more; 
and  a  better  thing  yet  is  that  there  are  comparatively 
few  of  them.  There  are  few  of  the  privates  also,  far 
fewer  than  the  priests  and  the  students  of  the  eccle 
siastical  schools,  who  dress  like  priests  and  go  dashing 
through  the  streets  in  files  and  troops. 

I  have  an  impression  that  one  sees  about  the  pro 
portion  of  Italian  soldiers  in  Rome  that  one  sees  of 
American  soldiers  in  Washington,  or,  at  least,  not  many 
more.  The  barracks  are  apparently  outside  the  walls; 
there  you  meet  cavalry  going  and  coming,  and  detach 
ments  of  bersaglierij  or  riflemen,  pushing  on  at  their 
quick  trot,  or  plainer  infantry  trudging  wearily.  Cer 
tainly,  in  a  capital  where  the  Church  holds  itself 
prisoner,  there  is  no  show  of  force  on  the  part  of  its 
captors ;  and  this  is  pleasant  to  the  friend  of  man  and 
the  lover  of  Italy  for  other  reasons.  In  the  absence 
of  the  military  you  can  imagine  that  not  only  does  the 
state  not  wish  to  boast  its  political  supremacy  in  the 
ancient  capital  of  the  Church,  but  it  does  not  desire 
to  show  the  potentiality  of  holding  its  own  against 
the  republic  which  is  instinct  there.  The  monarchy 
is  the  consensus  of  all  the  differing  wills  in  Italy, 
which  naturally  would  not  for  the  most  part  have 
chosen  a  monarchy.  But  never  was  a  monarchy  so 
mild-mannered  or  seated  so  firmly,  for  the  present  at 
least,  in  the  affection  and  reason  of  its  people. 

This  is  not  the  place  (as  writers  say  who  have  not 

prepared  themselves  with  the  requisite  ideas  at  a  given 

125 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

point)  to  speak  of  the  situation  in  Rome;  and  I  meant 
only  to  note  that  there  are  more  ecclesiastics  than  con 
scripts  to  be  seen  there.  Of  all  the  varying  costumes 
of  the  varying  schools,  none  is  so  pleasing,  so  vivid,  as 
that  of  the  German  students  as  they  rush  swiftly  by 
in  their  flying  robes  of  scarlet.  The  red  matches  the 
ruddy  health  in  their  cheeks,  and  there  is  a  sort  of 
gladness  in  their  fling  that  wins  the  liking  as  wrell  as 
the  looking ;  so  that  almost  one  would  not  mind  being  a 
German  student  of  theology  one's  self.  There  are  other 
costumes  running  in  color  from  violet,  and  blue  with 
orange  sashes,  to  unrelieved  black  and  black  trimmed 
with  red;  but  I  cannot  remember  which  nationality 
wears  which. 

I  am  not  sure  but  one  sees  as  many  priests  in  Rome 
now  as  in  the  times  when  they  ruled  it;  and  I  am 
no  such  Protestant  that  I  will  pretend  I  do  not  like 
a  monsignore  when  I  meet  him,  either  in  the  street 
or  at  afternoon  tea,  as  one  sometimes  may.  I  have 
no  grudge  against  priests  of  any  rank;  but  I  did  not 
seek  to  see  them  at  the  functions,  as  I  used  in  the  old 
days  to  do.  Shall  I  say  that  I  now  rather  tolerated 
than  welcomed  myself  there  through  the  hospitality 
which  so  freely  opens  the  churches  of  the  Church  to 
all  comers  of  whatever  creed  ?  What  right  had  I,  a 
heretic  and  recusant,  to  come  staring  and  standing 
round  where  the  faithful  were  kneeling  and  praying? 
If  we  could  conceive  of  our  fast  -  locked  conventicles 
being  thrown  as  freely  open,  could  we  conceive  of  Cath 
olics  wandering  up  and  down  their  naves  and  aisles 
while  the  hymning  or  preaching  went  on  ?  After  being 
so  high-minded  in  the  matter,  shall  I  confess  that  I 
was  a  good  deal  kept  out  of  the  churches  by  the  cold 
in  them?  It  was  a  sort  of  stored  cold,  much  greater 
than  that  outside,  though  there  was  something  warming 

126 


THE    MOSAICS    UNDER    THE    CAPUCHIN    CHURCH 


Of  THE 

UNIVERSE 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

to  the  fancy,  at  least,  in  the  smoke  and  smell  of  the 
incense. 

Even  with  the  Church  of  the  Capuchins,  which  we 
lived  opposite,  I  was  dilatory,  though  in  my  mediaeval 
days  it  had  been  one  of  the  first  places  to  which  I 
hurried.  In  those  days  everybody  said  you  must  be 
sure  and  go  to  the  Capuchins',  because  Guido's  "  St. 
Michael  and  the  Enemy "  was  there,  and  still  more 
because  the  wonderful  bone  mosaics  in  the  cemetery 
under  the  church  were  not  on  any  account  to  be  missed. 
I  suspect  that  in  both  these  matters  I  had  then  a  very 
crude  taste,  but  it  was  not  from  my  greater  refinement 
that  I  now  let  the  Capuchin  church  go  on  long  un- 
revisited.  It  was,  for  one  thing,  too  instantly  and  con 
stantly  accessible  across  the  street  there ;  and  it  is  well 
known  human  nature  is  such  that  it  will  not  seek  the 
line  of  the  least  resistance  as  long  as  it  can  help. 
Besides,  I  could  hardly  believe  that  it  was  really  the 
Capuchin  church  which  I  had  once  so  hastened  to  see, 
and  I  neglected  it  almost  two  months,  contenting  my 
self  with  the  display  of  those  hand-bills  on  the  convent 
walls,  spreading  largely  and  glaringly  incongruous  over 
it.  When  I  did  go  I  found  the  Guido  ridiculous,  of 
course,  in  the  painter's  imagination  of  the  archangel  as 
a  sort  of  dancing  figure  in  a  tableau  vivant,  and  yet 
of  a  sublime  authority  in  the  execution.  To  be  more 
honest,  I  had  little  feeling  about  it  and  less  knowledge. 

It  was  not  so  cold  in  the  church  as  I  had  expected ; 
and  in  the  succession  of  side  chapels,  beginning  with 
the  St.  Michael's  and  opening  into  one  another,  we 
found  a  kind  of  domesticity  close  upon  cosiness,  which 
we  were  enjoying  for  its  own  sake,  when  we  were  aware 
of  a  pale,  gentle  young  girl  who  seemed  to  be  alone 
there.  She  asked,  in  our  unmistakable  native  accents, 
if  we  were  going  to  see  the  Capuchin  mosaics  in  their 

127 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

place  below ;  and  one  of  us  said,  promptly,  No,  indeed ; 
but  relented  at  the  shadow  of  disappointment  that 
came  over  the  girl's  face,  and  asked,  Was  she  going? 
The  girl  said,  Oh,  she  guessed  she  could  see  them 
some  other  time ;  and  then  she  who  had  spoken  ordered 
him  who  had  not  spoken  to  go  with  her.  I  do  not  know 
what  question  of  propriety  engaged  them  with  refer 
ence  to  her  going  alone  with  the  handsome  young  monk 
waiting  to  accompany  her;  but  he  was  certainly  too 
handsome  for  a  monk  of  any  age.  We  followed  him, 
however,  and  I  had  my  usual  nausea  on  viewing  the 
decoration  of  the  ceilings  and  walls  of  the  place  below ; 
it  always  makes  me  sick  to  go  into  that  place ;  between 
realizing  that  I  am  of  the  same  make  as  the  brothers 
composing  those  mosaics,  and  trying  to  imagine  what 
the  intricate  patterns  will  do  at  the  Resurrection  Day, 
I  cannot  command  myself.  Neither  am  I  supported  by 
the  sight  of  some  skeletons,  the  raw  material  of  that 
grewsome  artistry,  deposited  whole  in  their  coffins  in 
the  niches  next  the  ground,  though  their  skulls  smile 
so  reassuringly  from  their  cowls;  their  cheeriness  can 
not  make  me  like  them.  But  my  companion  seemed  to 
be  merely  interested;  and  I  fancied  her  deciding  that 
it  all  quite  came  up  to  her  expectations,  while  I  trans 
lated  for  her  from  the  monk  that  the  dead  used  to  be 
left  in  the  hallowed  earth  from  Jerusalem  covering 
the  ground  before  they  were  taken  up  and  decoratively 
employed,  but  that  since  the  Italian  occupation  of 
Rome  the  art  had  fallen  into  abeyance.  She  said 
nothing,  but  when  we  came  out  she  stood  a  moment 
on  the  pavement  beside  our  cab  and  confessed  herself 
a  New  England  girl,  from  an  inland  town,  who  was 
travelling  with  relatives.  She  had  been  sick,  and  she 
had  come  alone,  as  soon  as  she  could  get  out,  to  see 
the  wonders  of  the  Capuchin  church,  because  she  had 

128 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

heard  so  much  of  them.  We  said  we  hoped  she  had 
been  pleased,  and  she  said,  "  Oh  yes,  indeed,"  and  then 
she  said,  "  Well,  good-bye,"  and  gently  tilted  away, 
leaving  us  glad  that  there  could  still  be  in  an  old, 
spoiled  world  such  sweetness  and  innocence  and  easily 
gratified  love  of  the  beautiful. 

Taking  Rome  so  easily,  so  provisionally,  while  wait 
ing  the  eventualities  of  the  colds  which  mild  climates 
are  sure  to  give  their  frequenters  from  the  winterlands, 
I  became  aware  of  a  latent  anxiety  respecting  St. 
Peter's.  I  did  not  feel  that  the  church  would  really 
get  away  without  our  meeting,  but  I  felt  that  it  was 
somehow  culpably  hazardous  in  me  to  be  taking  chances 
with  it.  As  a  family,  we  might  never  collectively  visit 
it,  and,  in  fact,  we  never  did;  but  one  day  I  drove 
boldly  (if  secretly)  off  alone  and  renewed  my  acquaint 
ance  with  this  contemporary  of  mine ;  for,  if  you  have 
been  in  Rome  a  generation  and  a  half  ago,  you  find 
that  you  are  coeval  not  only  with  the  regal,  the  repub 
lican,  and  the  imperial  Rome,  but  with  each  Rome  of 
the  successive  popes,  down,  at  least,  to  that  of  Pius 
IX.  St.  Peter's  will  not  be,  by  any  means,  your  oldest 
friend,  but  it  will  be  an  acquaintance  of  such  long 
standing  that  you  may  not  wish  to  use  it  with  all  the 
frankness  which  its  faults  invite.  If  you  say,  when 
you  drive  into  its  piazza  between  the  sublime  colon 
nades  which  stretch  forth  their  mighty  embrace  as  if 
to  take  the  whole  world  to  the  church's  heart,  that  here 
is  the  best  of  St.  Peter's,  you  will  not  be  wrong.  If 
you  say  that  here  is  grandeur,  and  that  there  where 
the  temple  fronts  you  grandiosity  begins,  you  will  be 
rhetorical,  but,  again,  you  will  not  be  wrong.  The  day 
of  my  furtive  visit  was  sober  and  already  waning,  with 
a  breeze  in  which  the  fountains  streamed  flaglike,  and 
with  a  gentle  sky  on  which  the  population  of  statues 
9  129 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

above  the  colonnades  defined  themselves  in  leisure  at 
titudes,  so  recognizable  all  that  I  am  sure  if  they 
had  come  down  and  taken  me  by  the  hand  we  could 
have  called  one  another  by  name  without  a  moment's 
hesitation.  Every  detail  of  a  prospect  which  is  with 
out  its  peer  on  earth,  but  may  very  possibly  be  matched 
in  Paradise,  had  been  so  deeply  stamped  in  my  re 
membrance  that  I  smiled  for  pleasure  in  finding  my 
self  in  an  environment  far  more  familiar  than  any 
other  I  could  think  of  at  the  time.  It  was  measurably 
the  same  within  the  church,  but  it  was  not  quite  the 
same  in  the  reserves  I  was  obliged  to  make,  the  reefs 
I  was  obliged  to  take  in  my  rapture.  The  fact  is,  that 
unless  you  delight  in  a  hugeness  whose  bareness  no 
ornamentation  can,  or  does  at  least,  conceal,  you  do 
not  find  the  interior  of  St.  Peter's  adequate  to  the  ex 
terior.  In  the  mere  article  of  hugeness,  even,  it  fails 
through  the  interposition  of  the  baldachin  midway  of 
the  vast  nave,  and  each  detail  seems  to  fail  of  the 
office  of  beauty  more  lamentably  than  another. 

I  had  known,  I  had  never  forgotten,  that  St.  Peter's 
was  very,  very  baroque,  but  I  had  not  known,  I  had 
not  remembered  how  baroque  it  was.  It  is  not  so 
badly  baroque  as  the  Church  of  the  Jesuits  either  in 
Rome  or  in  Venice,  or  as  the  Cathedral  at  Wiirzburg; 
1  but  still  it  is  badly  baroque,  though,  again,  not  so 
baroque  in  the  architecture  as  in  the  sculpture.  In 
the  statues  of  most  of  the  saints  and  popes  it  could 
not  be  more  baroque;  they  swagger  in  their  niches  or 
over  their  tombs  in  an  excess  of  decadent  taste  for 
which  the  most  bigoted  agnostic,  however  Protestant 
he  may  be,  must  generously  grieve.  It  is  not  con 
ceivably  the  taste  of  the  church  or  the  faith;  it  is  the 
taste  of  the  wicked  world,  now  withered  and  wasted 
to  powerlessness,  which  overruled  both  for  evil  in  art 

130 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

from  its  evil  life.  The  saints  and  the  popes  are, 
aesthetically,  lamentable  enough;  but  the  allegories  in 
bronze  or  marble,  which  are  mostly  the  sixteenth-cen 
tury  notions  of  the  Virtues,  are  inexpressible — some  of 
these  creatures  ought  really  to  be  put  out  of  the  place ; 
but  I  suppose  their  friends  would  say  they  ought  to 
be  left  as  typical  of  the  period.  In  the  case  of  that 
merciless  miscreant,  Queen  Christina  of  Sweden,  who 
has  her  monument  in  St.  Peter's,  there  would  be  peo 
ple  to  say  she  must  have  her  monument  in  some  place ; 
but,  all  the  same,  remembering  Monaldeschi — how  he 
was  stabbed  to  death  by  her  command,  the  kinder 
assassins  staying  their  hands  from  time  to  time, 
while  his  confessor  went  vainly  to  implore  her  pardon 
— it  is  shocking  to  find  her  tomb  in  the  prime  church 
in  Christendom.  At  first  it  offends  one  to  see  certain 
pontiffs^'with  mustaches  and  imperials  and  goatees ;  but, 
if  one  reflects  that  so  they  wore  them  in  life,  one 
perceives  right  in  it;  only  when  one  comes  to  earlier 
or  later  popes,  bearded  in  mediaeval  majority  or  shaven 
in  the  decent  modern  fashion,  one  can  endure  those 
others  only  as  part  of  the  prevailing  baroque  of  the 
church.  Canova  was  not  so  Greek  or  even  so  classic  f 
as  one  used  to  think  him,  but  one  hardly  has  a  mo 
ment  of  repose  in  St.  Peter's  till  one  comes  to  a  monu 
ment  by  him  and  rests  in  its  quiet.  It  is  tame,  it  is 
even  weak,  if  you  like ;  but  compared  with  the  frantic 
agglomeration  of  gilt  clouds  and  sunbursts,  and  mar 
ble  and  bronze  figures  in  the  high-altar,  it  is  heavenly 
serene  and  lovely. 

There  were  not  many  people  in  St.  Peter's  that  after 
noon,  so  that  I  could  give  undisturbed  attention  to  the 
workman  repairing  the  pavement  at  one  point  and 
grinding  the  marble  smooth  with  a  slow,  secular  move 
ment,  as  if  he  were  part  of  its  age-long  waste  and  re- 

131 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

pair.  Another  day,  the  last  day  I  came,  there  were 
companies  of  the  personally  conducted,  following  their 
leaders  about  and  listening  to  the  lectures  in  several 
languages,  which  no  more  stirred  the  immense  tran 
quillity  than  they  themselves  qualified  the  spacious 
vacancy  of  the  temple:  you  were  vaguely  sensible  of 
the  one  and  of  the  other  like  things  heard  and  seen 
in  a  drowse.  It  was  a  pleasant  vagueness  in  which 
all  angularities  of  feeling  were  lost,  and  you  were 
disposed  to  a  tolerance  of  the  things  that  had  hurt  or 
offended  you  before.  As  a  contemporary  of  the  edifice, 
throughout  its  growth,  you  could  account  for  them 
more  and  more  as  of  their  periods.  Perhaps  through 
your  genial  reconciliation  there  came,  however  dimly, 
a  suggestion  of  something  unnatural  and  alien  in  your 
presence  there  as  a  mere  sightseer,  or,  at  best,  a  con 
noisseur  much  or  little  instructed.  If  you  had  been 
there,  say,  as  a  worshipper,  would  you  have  been 
afflicted  by  the  incongruities  of  the  sculptures  or  by 
the  whole  baroque  keeping?  Possibly  this  considera 
tion  made  you  go  away  much  modester  than  you  came. 
"  After  all,"  you  may  have  said,  "  it  is  not  a  gallery ; 
it  is  not  a  museum.  It  is  a  house  of  prayer,"  and  you 
emerged,  let  us  hope,  humbled,  and  in  so  far  fitted  for 
renewed  joy  in  the  beauty,  the  glory  of  the  sublime 
colonnades. 


VII 
CHANCES    IN    CHURCHES 

If  any  one  were  to  ask  me  which  was  the  most  beau 
tiful  church  in  Rome  I  should  temporize,  and  perhaps 
I  should  end  by  saying  that  there  was  none.  Eccle 
siastical  Rmne  seems  to  have  inherited  the  instinct 

132 


'     OF  THE 

UNIVERSIT 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEKS 

of  imperial  Kome  for  ugliness;  only,  where  imperial 
Rome  used  the  instinct  collectively,  ecclesiastical 
Rome  has  used  it  distributively  in  the  innumerable 
churches,  each  less  lovely  than  the  other.  This  posi 
tion  will  do  to  hedge  from;  it  is  a  bold  outpost  from 
which  I  may  be  driven  in,  especially  by  travellers  who 
have  seen  the  churches  I  did  not  see.  I  took  my  chances, 
they  theirs;  for  nobody  can  singly  see  all  the  churches 
in  Rome;  that  would  need  a  syndicate. 

If  imperial  Rome  was  beautiful  in  detail  because  it 
had  the  Greeks  to  imagine  the  things  it  so  hideously 
grouped,  ecclesiastical  Rome  may  be  unbeautiful  in 
detail  because  it  had  not  the  Goths  to  realize  the 
beauty  of  its  religious  aspiration  —  that  is,  if  it  was 
the  Goths  who  invented  Gothic  architecture;  I  do 
not  suppose  it  was.  Anyway,  there  is  said  to  be  but 
one  Gothic  church  in  Rome,  and  this  I  did  not  visit, 
perhaps  because  I  felt  that  I  must  inure  myself  to  the 
prevalent  baroque,  or  perhaps  from  mere  perversity. 
I  can  merely  say  in  self-defence  that,  on  the  outside, 
Santa  Maria  sopra  Minerva  no  more  promised  an  inner 
beauty  than  II  Gesu,  which  is  the  most  baroque  church 
in  Rome,  without  the  power  of  coming  together  for  a 
unity  of  effect  which  baroque  churches  sometimes  have. 
It  is  a  tumult  of  virtuosity  in  painting,  in  scuplture, 
in  architecture.  Statues  sprawl  into  frescoed  figures 
at  points  in  the  roof,  and  frescoed  figures  emerge  in 
marble  at  others.  Marvels  of  riches  are  lavished  upon 
chapels  and  altars,  which  again  are  so  burdened  with 
bronze  gilded  or  silver  plated,  and  precious  stones 
wrought  and  unwrought,  that  the  soul,  or  if  not  the 
soul  the  taste,  shrinks  dismayed  from  them.  Execu 
tion  in  default  of  inspiration  has  had  its  way  to  the 
last  excess;  there  is  nothing  that  it  has  not  done  to 

show  what  it  can  do;  and  all  that  it  has  done  is  a 

133 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

triumph  of  misguided  skill  and  power.  But  it  would 
be  a  mistake  for  the  spectator  to  imagine  that  any 
thing  has  been  done  from  the  spirit  in  which  he  re 
ceives  it;  everything  is  the  expression  of  devoted  faith 
in  the  forms  that  the  art  of  the  time  offered. 

In  the  monstrous  marble  tableau,  say,  of  "  Keligion 
Triumphing  Over  Heresy,"  he  may  be  very  sure  that 
the  artist  was  not  winking  an  ironical  eye  where  he 
made  Faith  spurning  Schism  with  her  foot  look  very 
much  like  a  lady  of  imperfect  breeding  who  has  lost 
her  temper;  he  was  most  devoutly  in  earnest,  or  at 
least  those  were  so,  both  cleric  and  laic,  for  whom 
he  wrought  his  prodigy.  We  others,  pagans  or  Prot 
estants,  had  better  understand  that  the  children  of 
the  Church,  and  especially  the  poor  children,  were 
serious  through  all  the  shows  that  seem  to  us  pre 
posterous  ;  they  had  not  renounced  something  for  noth 
ing;  if  they  bowed  that  very  fallible  thing,  Reason,  to 
Dogma,  they  got  faith  for  their  reward  and  could 
gladly  accept  whatever  symbol  of  it  was  offered 
them. 

No  matter  how  baroque  any  church  was,  it  could 
express  something  of  this  sincerity,  and  in  their  way 
the  worshippers  seemed  always  simply  at  home  in  it. 
In  San  Lorenzo  in  Lucina,  where  I  went  to  see  the 
truly  sublime  "  Crucifixion  "  by  Guido  (there  is  also 
a  bar  of  St.  Lawrence's  gridiron  to  be  seen,  but  I  did 
not  know  it  at  the  time)  I  liked  the  unconsciousness 
of  the  girl  kneeling  before  the  high  altar  and  pro 
visionally  gossiping  with  the  young  sacristan  before 
she  began  her  devotions.  She  gave  her  mind  to  them 
when  he  asked  me  if  I  wished  to  see  the  Guido,  for 
I  could  see  her  lips  moving  while  she  shared  my 
veneration  of  that  most  affecting  masterpiece;  the 
more  genuinely  affecting  because  it  expresses  the 

134 


OF  THE 

f  UNIVERSITY  j 

OF 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

rapture  and  not  the  anguish  of  the  Passion.  I  have 
no  doubt  she  was  grateful  when  the  sacristan  proposed 
my  having  the  electric  light  turned  on  it,  and  when, 
though  that  I  knew  it  would  cost  me  something  more, 
I  assented. 

They  have  the  electric  light  now  in  all  the  holy 
places,  and  notahly  in  the  dungeon  where  St.  Peter 
was  imprisoned,  and  where  the  custodian  was  so  proud 
of  it,  as  the  lastest  improvement,  and  as  far  more 
satisfactory  than  candles.  The  shrine  of  the  mirac 
ulous  Bambino  in  the  Church  of  Ara  Cosli  is  also 
lighted  by  electricity,  which  spares  no  detail  of  the 
child's  apparel  and  appearance.  To  other  eyes  than 
those  of  faith  it  has  the  effect  of  a  life-size  but  not 
life-like  doll,  piously  bedizened  and  jewelled  over,  but 
rather  ill-humored  looking,  or,  if  not  that,  proud  look 
ing  or  severe  looking.  To  the  eyes  in  which  its  sick 
bed  visits  have  dried  the  tears  it  must  wear  an  aspect 
of  heavenly  pity  and  beauty ;  and  I  am  very  willing  to 
believe  that  these  are  the  eyes  which  see  it  aright. 
As  it  was,  and  taking  it  literally,  it  seemed  far  less 
mechanical  and  unfeeling  than  the  monk  who  pulled 
it  out  and  pushed  it  back  on  its  wheeled  platform. 
But  he  must  get  tired  of  showing  it  to  the  unbelievers 
who  come  out  of  curiosity,  and  very  likely  I  should, 
if  I  were  in  his  place,  as  nonchalantly  wipe  across  the 
glass  front  of  the  shrine  the  card  with  the  Bambino's 
legend  printed  in  various  languages  on  it,  which  you 
may  then  buy  with  the  blessing  from  the  glass  for 
whatever  you  choose  to  give. 

Where  art  and  antiquity  are  so  abundant  as  in  Rome, 
the  Bambino  incident  is  probably  what  the  reader, 
when  he  has  visited  the  Church  of  Ara  Coeli  will 
chiefly  remember,  and  I  will  not  pretend  to  be  any 
better  than  the  reader,  though  I  will  say  that  I  have 

135 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

a  persistent  sense  of  something  important  about  the 
roof;  and  there  are  the  Pinturrichio  frescos,  which 
an  old  Sienese  like  me  must  have  the  taste  for.  The 
not  easily  praiseful  Hare  says  it  is  "  one  of  the  most 
interesting  of  Christian  churches/'  and  without  allow 
ing  that  there  are  any  other  sorts  of  churches  I  may 
allow  that  this  is  one  of  the  least  unlovely  in  Home. 
Trinita  de'  Monti  seemed  to  he  another,  but  only,  I 
dare  say,  subjectively,  because  of  the  exquisite  pleas 
ure  we  had  one  afternoon  in  March  when  we  went  into 
it  for  the  nuns'  singing  of  the  Benediction.  That,  we 
had  been  told,  was  something  which  no  one  coming  to 
Kome  should  miss;  and  we  were  so  anxious  not  to 
miss  it  that  on  our  way  to  the  Pincian  Hill  we  stopped 
at  the  foot  of  the  church-steps,  and  reassured  ourselves 
of  the  hour  through  the  kindness  of  an  English-speak 
ing  nurse-maid  at  the  bottom  and  of  a  gentle  nun  at 
the  top,  who  both  told  us  the  hour  would  be  exactly 
five. 

When  we  came  back  at  that  time  and  bought  our 
way  into  the  church  by  rightful  payment  to  the  two 
blind  beggars  who  guarded  its  doors,  we  found  it  pack 
ed  with  people  who  had  been  more  literally  punctual. 
They  were  of  all  nations,  but  a  large  part  were  Anglo- 
Americans,  and  a  young  girl  of  this  race  rose  and  gave 
her  seat,  with  a  sweet  insistence  that  would  not  be 
denied,  to  that  one  of  us  who  deserved  it  most.  He 
who  was  left  leaning  against  the  soft  side  of  a  pillar 
hesitated  whether  to  make  some  young  priests  spread 
ing  over  undue  space  on  one  of  the  benches  push  up, 
and  he  enjoyed  a  rich  moment  of  self-satisfaction  in  his 
forbearance.  He  was  there,  to  be  sure,  an  alien  and 
a  heretic,  out  of  mere  curiosity,  and  they  were  there 
probably  so  rapt  in  their  devout  attention  that  they  did 
not  notice  their  errant  step-brother,  and  so  did  not  think 

136 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

to  offer  him  the  hospitality  of  their  mother  church's 
house.  But  he  would  not  make  any  such  allowance; 
he  condemned  them  with  the  unsparing  severity  of  the 
strap-hanger  in  a  trolley-car,  who  blushes  with  shame 
for  the  serried  rows  of  men  sitting  behind  their  news 
papers.  When  he  was  at  his  wit's  end  to  find  excuse 
for  them  a  priest  on  another  bench  made  room,  and 
he  sank  down  glad  to  forgive  and  forget;  but  now  he 
would  not  have  yielded  his  place  to  any  other  Protesant 
in  Christendom. 

In  the  collective  curiosity  he  lost  the  sense  of  self- 
reproach  for  his  own,  and  eagerly  bent  his  gaze  on 
the  group  of  officiating  priests  at  the  high  altar  beyond 
the  grille  of  the  choir.  The  altar  was  all  a  blaze  of 
electric  lights,  and  there  was  a  novel  effect  in  their 
composition  in  the  crosses  resting  diagonally  on  either 
side  of  it.  Next  the  grille  showed  the  feathers  and 
fashions  of  the  mothers  and  sisters  of  the  young  girls 
from  the  school  of  the  adjoining  Convent  of  the  Sacred 
Heart,  and  midway  between  these  visitors,  like  a  flock 
of  white  birds  stooping  on  some  heavenly  plain,  the 
white  veils  of  the  girls  stretched  in  lovely  levels  to 
left  and  right.  Nothing  could  have  attuned  the  spirit 
for  the  surprise  awaiting  it  like  this  angelic  sight ;  and 
when  the  voices  of  the  nuns  fell  suddenly  from  the 
organ  gallery,  behind  all  the  people,  like  the  singing 
of  the  morning  stars  molten  in  one  adoring  music  and 
falling  from  the  zenith  down,  whatever  moments  of 
innocent  joy  life  might  have  had  it  could  have  had  none 
surpassing  that. 

But  when  we  came  out  the  self-mockery  with  which 
life  is  apt  to  recover  itself  from  any  exaltation  began.  * 
In  returning  from  the  Pincio  the  only  cab  we  had  been 
able  to  get  was  the  last  left  of  the  very  worst  cabs 
in  Rome,  and  we  had  bidden  the  driver  wait  for  us 

137 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

at  the  church-steps,  not  without  some  hope  that  he 
would  play  us  false.  But  there  he  was,  true  to  his 
word,  with  such  disciplined  fidelity  as  that  of  the 
Roman  sentinels  who  used  to  die  at  their  posts;  and 
we  mounted  to  ours  with  the  muted  prayer  that  we, 
at  least,  might  reach  home  alive.  This  did  not  seem 
probable  when  the  driver  whipped  up  his  horse.  It 
appeared  to  have  aged  and  sickened  while  we  were 
in  the  church,  though  we  had  thought  it  looked  as 
bad  as  could  be  before,  and  it  lurched  alarmingly 
from  side  to  side,  recovering  itself  with  a  plunge  of 
its  heavy  head  away  from  the  side  in  which  its  body 
was  sinking.  The  driver  swayed  on  his  box,  having 
fallen  equally  decrepit  in  spite  of  the  restoratives  he 
seemed  to  have  applied  for  his  years  and  infirmities. 
His  clothes  had  put  on  some  such  effect  of  extreme 
decay  as  those  of  Rip  Van  Winkle  in  the  third  act; 
there  was  danger  that  he  would  fall  on  top  of  his  fall 
ing  horse,  and  that  their  raiment  would  mingle  in  one 
scandalous  ruin.  Via  Sistina  had  never  been  so  full 
of  people  before;  never  before  had  it  been  so  long  to 
that  point  where  we  were  to  turn  out  of  it  into  the 
friendly  obscurity  of  the  little  cross  street  which  would 
bring  us  to  our  hotel.  We  could  not  consent  to  arrive 
in  that  form ;  we  made  the  driver  stop,  and  we  got  out 
and  began  overpaying  him  to  release  us.  But  the 
more  generously  we  overpaid  him  the  more  nobly  he 
insisted  upon  serving  us  to  our  door.  At  last,  by  such 
a  lavish  expenditure  as  ought  richly  to  provide  for  the 
few  remaining  years  of  himself  and  his  horse,  we  pre 
vailed  with  him  to  let  us  go,  and  reached  our  hotel 
glad,  almost  proud,  to  arrive  on  foot. 

Hare  tells  me,  now  it  is  too  late,  that  I  may  reach 
the  Church  of  Santa  Maggiore  by  keeping  straight  on 
through  the  long,  long  straightness  of  the  Via  Sistina. 

138 


CHURCH    OF    SANTA    MAGGIORE 


•^^»r— » 

,' 


ROHAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

I  reached  that  church  by  quite  another  way  after  many 
postponements;  for  I  thought  I  remembered  all  about 
it  from  my  visit  in  1864.  ~But  really  nothing  had  re 
mained  to  me  save  a  sense  of  the  exceptional  dignity 
of  the  church,  and  the  sole  fact  that  the  roof  of  its 
most  noble  nave  is  thickly  plated  with  the  first  gold 
mined  in  South  America,  which  Ferdinand  and  Isa 
bella  gave  that  least  estimable  of  the  popes,  Alexander 
VI.  Now  I  know  that  it  is  far  richer  than  any  gold 
could  make  it  in  the  treasures  of  history  and  legend, 
which  fairly  encrust  it  in  every  part.  Doubtless  some 
portion  of  this  wealth  my  fellow-sightseers  were  striv 
ing  to  store  up  out  of  the  guide-books  which  they  bore 
in  their  hands  and  from  which  they  strained  their  eyes 
to  the  memorable  points  as  they  slowly  paced  through 
the  temple.  Some  were  reading  one  to  another  in 
bated  voices,  and  I  thought  them  ridiculous;  but  per 
haps  they  were  wise,  and  rather  he  was  ridiculous  who 
marched  by  them  and  contented  himself  with  a  general 
sense  of  the  grandeur,  the  splendor.  More  than  any 
other  church  except  that  of  San  Paolo  fuori  le  Mura, 
Santa  Maria  Maggiore  imparts  this  sense,  for,  as  I  have 
already  pretended,  St.  Peter's  fails  of  it.  Without  as 
well  as  within  the  church  is  spacious  and  impressive 
from  its  spaciousness;  but  it  seems  more  densely 
fringed  than  most  others  with  peddlers  of  post-cards 
and  mosaic  pins.  On  going  in  you  can  plunge  through 
their  ranks,  but  in  coming  out  you  do  not  so  easily 
escape.  One  boy  pursued  me  quite  to  my  cab,  in  spite 
of  my  denials  of  hand  and  tongue.  There  he  stayed 
the  driver  while  he  made  a  last,  a  humorous  appeal. 
"  Skiddoo  ?"  he  asked  in  my  native  speech.  "  Yes," 
I  sullenly  replied,  "  skiddoo !"  But  it  is  now  one 
of  the  regrets  which  I  shall  always  feel  for  my 
wasted  opportunities  in  Eome  that  I  did  not  buy  all 

139 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

his  post  -  cards.  Patient  gayety  like  his  merited  as 
much. 

As  it  was,  I  drove  callously  away  from  Santa  Maria 
Maggiore  to  San  Pietro  in  Vincoli,  where  I  expected  to 
renew  my  veneration  for  Michelangelo's  Moses.  That 
famous  figure  is  no  longer  so  much  in  the  minds  of 
men  as  it  used  to  be,  I  think;  and,  if  one  were  to  be 
quite  honest  with  one's  self  as  to  the  why  and  where 
fore  of  one's  earlier  veneration,  one  might  not  get  a 
very  distinct  or  convincing  reply.  Do  sculptors  and 
painters  suffer  periods  of  slight  as  authors  do  ?  Are 
Raphael  and  Michelangelo  only  provisionally  eclipsed 
by  Botticelli  and  by  Donatello  and  Mino  da  Fiesole, 
or  are  they  remanded  to  a  lasting  limbo  ?  I  find  I 
have  said  in  my  notes  that  the  Moses  is  improbable 
and  unimpressive,  and  I  pretended  a  more  genuine 
joy  in  the  heads  of  the  two  Pollajuolo  brothers  which 
startle  you  from  their  tomb  as  you  enter  the  church. 
Is  the  true,  then,  better  than  the  ideal,  or  is  it  only 
my  grovelling  spirit  which  prefers  it  ?  What  I  scarce 
ly  venture  to  say  is  that  those  two  men  evidently  lived 
and  still  live,  and  that  Michelangelo's  prophet  never 
lived ;  I  scarcely  venture,  because  I  remember  with  ten 
derness  how  certain  clear  and  sweet  spirits  used  to 
bow  their  reason  before  the  Moses  as  before  a  dogma 
of  art  which  must  be  implicitly  accepted.  Do  they 
still  do  so,  those  clear  and  sweet  spirits  ? 

The  archaeologist  who  was  driving  my  cab  that  morn 
ing  had  pointed  out  to  me  on  the  way  to  this  church 
the  tower  on  which  Nero  stood  fiddling  while  Rome 
was  burning.  It  is  a  strong,  square,  mediaeval  structure 
which  will  serve  the  purpose  of  legend  yet  many  cen 
turies,  if  progress  does  not  pull  it  down ;  but  the  fiddle 
no  longer  exists,  apparently,  and  Nero  himself  is  dead. 
When  I  came  out  and  mounted  into  my  cab,  my  driver 

140 


MICHELANGELO'S  "  MOSES  "  IN  SAN  PIETRO  IN  VINCOLI 


•  •, 

DRNU 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

showed  me  with  his  whip,  beyond  a  garden  wall,  a 
second  tower,  very  beautiful  against  the  blue  sky,  above 
the  slim  cypresses,  which  he  said  was  the  scene  of  the 
wicked  revels  of  Lucrezia  Borgia.  I  do  not  know  why 
it  has  been  chosen  for  this  distinction  above  other 
towers;  but  it  was  a  great  satisfaction  to  have  it 
identified.  Very  possibly  I  had  seen  both  of  these 
memorable  towers  in  my  former  Koman  sojourn,  but 
T  did  not  remember  them,  whereas  I  renewed  my  old 
impressions  of  San  Paolo  fuori  le  Mura  in  almost 
every  detail. 

That  is  the  most  majestic  church  in  Rome,  I  think, 
and  I  suppose  it  is,  for  a  cold  splendor,  unequalled 
anywhere.  Somehow,  from  its  form  and  from  the 
v  great  propriety  of  its  decoration,  it  far  surpasses  St. 
Peter's.  The  antic  touch  of  the  baroque  is  scarcely 
present  in  it,  for,  being  newly  rebuilt  after  the  fire 
which  destroyed  the  fourth-century  basilica  in  1823, 
its  faults  are  not  those  of  sixteenth-century  excess.  It 
would  be  a  very  bold  or  a  very  young  connoisseur  who 
should  venture  to  appraise  its  merits  beyond  this  nega 
tive  valuation;  and  timid  age  can  affirm  no  more  than 
that  it  came  away  with  its  sensibilities  unwounded. 
Tradition  and  history  combine  with  the  stately  archi 
tecture,  which  reverently  includes  every  possible  relic 
of  the  original  fabric,  to  render  the  immense  temple 
venerable;  and  as  it  is  still  in  process  of  construction, 
with  a  colonnaded  porch  in  scale  and  keeping  with  the 
body  of  the  basilica,  it  offers  to  the  eye  of  wonder  the 
actual  spectacle  of  that  unstinted  outlay  of  riches  which 
has  filled  Rome  with  its  multitudes  of  pious  monu 
ments — monuments  mainly  ugly,  but  potent  with  the 
imagination  even  in  their  ugliness  through4 the  piety 
of  their  origin.  Where  did  all  that  riches  come  from  ? 

Out   of   what   unfathomable    opulence,    out    of    what 

141 


EOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

pitiable  penury,  out  of  what  fear,  out  of  what  love  ? 
One  fancies  the  dying  hands  of  wealth  that  released 
their  gift  to  the  sacred  use,  the  knotted  hands  of  work 
that  spared  it  from  their  need.  The  giving  continues 
in  this  latest  Christian  age  as  in  the  earliest,  and  Rome 
is  increasingly  Rome  in  a  world  which  its  thinkers 
think  no  longer  believes. 

From  San  Paolo  we  were  going  to  another  shrine, 
more  hallowed  to  our  literary  sense,  and  we  drove 
through  the  sweet  morning  sunshine  and  bird-singing, 
past  pale-pink  clouds  of  almond  bloom  on  the  garden 
slopes,  with  snowy  heights  far  beyond,  to  the  simple 
graveyard  where  Keats  and  Shelley  lie.  Our  way  to 
the  Protestant  cemetery  held  by  some  shabby  apart 
ment  -  houses  of  that  very  modern  Rome  which  was 
largely  so  jerry-built,  and  which  I  would  not  leave 
out  of  the  landscape  if  I  could,  for  I  think  their  shabbi- 
ness  rather  heightens  your  sense  of  the  peaceful  love 
liness  to  which  you  come  under  the  cypresses,  among 
the  damp  aisles,  so  thickly  studded  with  the  stones 
recording  the  death  in  exile  of  the  English  strangers 
lying  there  far  from  home.  In  a  faulty  perspective 
of  memory,  I  had  always  seen  the  graves  of  the  two 
poets  side  by  side;  but  the  heart  of  Shelley  rests  in  a 
prouder  part  of  the  cemetery,  where  the  paths  between 
the  finer  tombs  are  carefully  kept;  and  the  dust  of 
Keats  lies  in  an  old,  plain,  almost  neglected  corner, 
well  off  beyond  a  dividing  trench.  It  seems  an  un 
gracious  chance  which  has  so  parted  the  two  poets  so 
inextricably  united  in  their  fame ;  it  is  as  if  here,  too, 
the  world  would  have  its  way;  but,  of  course,  it  is 
only  at  the  worst  an  ungracious  chance.  Keats,  at 
least,  has  the  companionship  of  the  painter  Severn, 
the  friend  on  whose  "  fond  breast  his  parting  soul 
relied,"  and  who  has  here  followed  hiin  into  the  dust, 

142 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

A  few  withered  daisies  had  been  scattered  in  the  thin 
grass  over  the  poet,  and  one  hardly  dared  lift  one's 
eyes  from  them  to  the  heartbreaking  epitaph  which  one 
could  not  spell  for  tears. 

VIII 
A    FEW    VILLAS 

It  was  but  a  few  minutes'  walk  from  the  hotel  to 
the  Porta  Pinciana,  and,  if  you  took  this  short  walk, 
you  found  yourself  almost  before  you  knew  it  in  the 
Villa  Borghese.  You  might  then,  on  your  first  Sun 
day  in  Rome,  have  fancied  yourself  in  Central  Park, 
for  all  difference  in  the  easily  satisfied  Sunday-after 
noon  crowd.  But  with  me  a  difference  began  in  the 
grove  of  stone-pines,  and  their  desultory  stretch  toward 
the  Casino,  where  in  the  simple  young  times  which 
are  now  the  old  we  had  hurried,  with  our  Kugler  in 
our  hands  and  other  reading  in  our  heads, to  see  Titian's 
Sacred  and  Profane  Love  (it  has  got  another  name 
now)  and  Canova's  Pauline  Bonaparte,  who  was  also 
the  Princess  Borghese,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  precious 
gallery.  However,  if  I  had  any  purpose  of  visiting 
the  Casino  now,  I  put  it  aside,  and  contented  myself 
with  the  gentle  sun,  the  gentle  shade,  and  the  sweet 
air,  which  might  have  had  less  dust  in  it,  breathing  over 
grass  as  green  in  late  January  as  in  early  June.  I  did 
not  care  so  much  for  a  mounted  corporal  who  was 
jumping  his  horse  over  a  two-foot  barrier  in  the  cir 
cular  path  rounding  between  the  Villa  Borghese  and 
the  Pincian  Hill,  though  his  admirers  hung  in  rows 
on  the  rail  beside  it  so  thickly  that  I  could  hardly 
have  got  a  place  to  see  him  if  I  had  tried.  But  there 
was  room  enough  to  the  fathers  and  mothers  who  had 

143 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

brought  their  children,  and  young  lovers  who  had 
brought  each  other  for  the  afternoon's  outing,  just 
as  the  people  in  Central  Park  do,  and,  no  doubt,  just 
as  any  Sunday  crowd  must  do  in  the  planet  Mars,  if 
the  inhabitants  are  human.  There  was  a  vacherie  near 
by  where  not  many  persons  were  drinking  milk  or  even 
coffee ;  it  is  never  the  notion  of  the  Italians  that  amuse 
ment  can  be  had  only  through  the  purchase  of  refresh 
ments. 

I  did  not  get  as  far  as  the  Casino  till  the  last  Sunday 
of  our  Roman  stay,  though  we  came  again  and  again 
to  the  park  (as  we  should  call  it,  rather  than  villa), 
sometimes  to  walk,  sometimes  to  drive,  and  always  to 
rejoice  in  its  loveliness.  It  was  not  now  a  very  guard 
ed,  if  once  a  very  studied,  loveliness ;  not  quite  neglect, 
but  a  forgottenness  to  which  it  took  kindly,  had  fallen 
upon  it;  the  drives  seemed  largely  left  to  take  care 
of  themselves,  the  walks  were  such  as  the  frequenters 
chose  to  make  over  the  grass  or  through  the  woods ;  the 
buildings — the  aviary,  the  conservatory,  the  dairy,  the 
stables — which  formed  part  of  the  old  pleasance,  stood 
about,  as  if  in  an  absent-minded  indifference  to  their 
various  roles.  The  weather  had  grown  a  little  more 
wintry,  or,  at  least,  autumnal,  as  the  season  advanced 
toward  spring,  and  one  day  at  the  end  of  February,  when 
we  were  passing  a  woody  hollow,  the  fallen  leaves  stir 
red  crisply  with  a  sound  like  that  of  late  October  at 
home.  We  had  been  at  some  pains  and  expense  to  put 
home  four  thousand  miles  away,  but  this  sound  was  the 
sweetest  and  dearest  we  had  heard  in  Rome,  and  it 
strangely  attuned  our  spirits  to  the  enjoyment  of  the 
fake  antiquities,  the  broken  arches,  pediments,  col 
umns,  statues,  which,  in  a  region  glutted  with  ruin, 
the  landscape  architect  of  the  Villa  Borghese  had 
fancied  putting  about  in  pleasing  stages  of  artificial 

144 


THE    LITTLE    STADIUM    WITH    ITS    GRADINES  " 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

dilapidation.  But  there  was  nothing  faked  in  the 
dishevelled  grass  of  the  little  stadium,  with  its  gra- 
dines  around  the  sides,  and  the  game  of  tennis  which 
some  young  girls  were  playing  in  it.  Neither  was 
there  anything  ungenuine  in  the  rapture  of  the  boy 
whom  we  saw  racing  through  the  dead  leaves  of  that 
woody  hollow  in  chase  of  the  wild  fancies  that  fly 
before  boyhood;  and  I  hope  that  the  charm,  of  the 
plinths  and  statues  in  the  careless  grounds  behind  the 
soft,  old,  yellow  Casino  was  a  real  charm.  At  any  rate, 
these  things  all  consoled,  and  the  turf  under  the  pines, 
now  thickly  starred  with  daisies,  gave  every  assurance 
of  being  original. 

When  we  came  last  the  daisies  were  mingled  with 
clustering  anemones,  which  seem  a  greatly  overrated 
sort  of  flower,  crude  and  harsh  in  color,  like  cheap 
calico.  If  it  were  not  for  their  pretty  name  I  do  not 
see  how  people  could  like  them;  yet  the  children  that 
day  were  pouncing  upon  them  and  pulling  them  by 
handfuls;  for  the  Villa  Borghese  is  now  state  prop 
erty  and  is  free  to  the  children  of  the  people  in  a 
measure  quite  beyond  Central  Park.  They  can  ap 
parently  pull  anything  they  want,  except  mushrooms; 
there  are  signs  advising  people  that  the  state  draws 
the  line  at  mushrooms. 

It  was  once  more  a  Sunday,  and  it  was  a  free  day 
in  the  Casino.  The  trodden  earth  sent  up  its  homely, 
kindly  smell  from  many  feet  on  their  way  to  the  gal 
leries,  which  Ave  found  full  of  people  looking  greater 
intelligence  than  the  frequenters  of  such  places  com 
monly  betray.  They  might  have  been  such  more  culti 
vated  sight-seers  as  could  not  afford  to  come  on  the  pay 
days,  and,  if  they  had  not  crowded  the  room  so,  one 
might  have  been  glad  as  well  as  proud  to  be  of  their 
number.  They  did  not  really  keep  one  from  older 
10  145 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

friends,  from  the  statues  and  the  pictures  which  were 
as  familiarly  there  in  1908  as  in  1864.  In  a  world  of 
vicissitudes  such  things  do  not  change ;  the  Sacred  and 
Profane  Love  of  Titian,  though  it  had  changed  its 
name,  had  not  changed  its  nature,  and  was  as  divine 
ly  serene,  as  richly  beautiful  as  hefore.  The  Veroneses 
still  glowed  from  the  walls,  dimming  with  their  Vene 
tian  effulgence  all  the  other  pictures  but  the  Botticellis 
and  the  Francias,  and  comforting  one  with  the  hope 
that,  if  one  had  always  felt  their  beauty  so  much,  one 
might,  without  suspecting  it,  have  always  had  some 
little  sense  of  art.  But  it  was  probably  only  a  lit 
erary  sense  of  art,  such  as  moves  the  observer  when 
he  finds  himself  again  in  the  presence  of  Canova's 
Pauline  Borghese.  That  is  there,  on  the  terms  which 
were  those  no  less  of  her  character  than  of  her  time, 
in  the  lasting  enjoyment  of  a  publicity  which  her 
husband  denied  it  in  his  lifetime;  but  it  had  no  more 
to  say  now  than  it  had  so  many,  many  years  ago.  As 
a  piece  of  personal  history  it  is  amusing  enough,  and 
as  a  sermon  in  stone  it  preaches  whatever  moral  you 
choose  to  read  into  it.  But  as  the  masterpiece  of  the 
/  sculptor  it  testifies  to  an  ideal  of  his  art  for  which  the 
world  has  reason  to  be  grateful.  Criticism  does  not 
now  put  Canova  on  the  height  where  we  once  looked 
up  to  him;  but  criticism  is  a  fickle  thing,  especially 
in  its  final  judgments ;  and  one  cannot  remember  the 
behavior  of  the  Virtues  in  some  of  the  baroque  churches 
without  paying  homage  to  the  portrait  of  a  lady  who, 
whatever  she  was,  was  not  a  Virtue,  but  who  yet  helped 
the  sculptor  to  realize  in  her  statue  a  Venus  of  ex 
ceptional  propriety.  Tame,  yes,  we  may  now  safely 
declare  Canova  to  have  been,  but  sane  we  must  allow; 
and  we  must  never  forget  that  he  has  been  the  inspira 
tion  in  modern  sculpture  of  the  eternal  Greek  truth 

146 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEES 

of  repose  from  which  the  art  had  so  wildly  wandered. 
He,  more  than  any  other,  stayed  it  in  the  mad  career 
on  which  Michelangelo,  however  remotely,  had  started 
it;  and  we  owe  it  to  him  that  the  best  marbles  now 
no  longer  strut  or  swagger  or  bully. 

It  was  by  one  of  those  accidents  which  are  the  best 
fortunes  of  travel  that  I  visited  the  Villa  Papa  Giulio, 
when  I  thought  I  was  merely  going  to  the  Piazza  del 
Popolo,  to  which  one  cannot  go  too  often.     A  chance 
look  at  my  guide-book  beguiled  me  with  the  notion 
that  the  villa  was  just  outside  the  gate;  but  it  was 
a  deceit  which  I  should  be  glad  to  have  practised  on 
me  every  February  17th  of  my  life.     If  the  villa  was 
farther  off  than  I  thought,  the  way  to  it  lay  for  a  while 
through  a  tramwayed  suburban  street  delightfully  en 
cumbered  with  wide-horned  oxen  drawing  heavy  wagon- 
loads  of  grain,  donkeys  pulling  carts  laden  with  vege 
tables,  and  children  and  hens  and  dogs  playing  their 
several  parts  in  a  perspective  through  which  one  would 
like  to  continue  indefinitely.     But  after  awhile  a  dim, 
cool,   curving  lane  leaves  this   street   and   irresistibly 
invites  your  cab  to  follow  it;   and  sooner  than  you 
could  ask  you  get  to  the  villa  gate.     There  a  gate 
keeper  tacitly  wonders  at  your  arriving  before  he  is 
well  awake,   and  will  keep  you  a  good  five  minutes 
while  he  parleys  with  another  custodian  before  he  can 
bring  himself  to  sell  you  a  ticket  and  let  you  into  the 
beautiful,  old,  orange-gray  cloistered  court,  where  there 
is  a  young  architect  with  the  T-square  of  his  calling 
sketching  some  point  of  it,  and  a  gardener  gently  hack 
ing  off  from  the  parent  stems  such  palm-leaves  as  have 
survived  their  usefulness.    Beyond  is  the  famous  foun- 
tained  court,  and  a  classic  temple  to  the  right,  and  other 
structures  responsive  to  the  impulses  of  the  good  Pope 
Julius  III.;  who  was  never  tired  of  adding  to  this  pleas- 

147 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

ure  palace  of  his.  It  was  his  favorite  resort,  with  all 
his  court,  from  the  Vatican,  and  his  favorite  amuse 
ment  in  it  was  the  somewhat  academic  diversion 
of  proverbs,  which  Ranke  says  sometimes  "  mingled 
blushes  with  the  smiles  of  his  guests." 

Lest  the  reader  should  think  I  have  gone  direct  to 
Ranke  for  this  knowledge,  I  will  own  that  I  got  it  at 
second-hand  out  of  Hare's  Walks  in  Rome,  where  he 
tells  us  also  that  the  pope  used  to  come  to  his  villa 
every  day  by  water,  and  that  "the  richly  decorated 
barge,  filled  with  venerable  ecclesiastics,  gliding 
through  the  osier  -  fringed  banks  of  the  Tiber,  .  .  . 
would  make  a  fine  subject  for  a  picture."  No  doubt, 
and  if  I  owned  such  a  picture  I  would  lose  no  time 
in  public  -  spiritedly  bestowing  it  on  the  first  needy 
gallery.  Our  author  is,  as  usual,  terribly  severe  on 
the  Italian  government  for  some  wrong  done  the  villa, 
I  could  not  well  make  out  what.  But  it  seems  to 
involve  the  present  disposition  of  the  Etruscan  an 
tiquities  in  the  upper  rooms  of  the  casino,  where  these, 
the  most  precious  witnesses  of  that  rather  inarticulate 
civilization,  must  in  any  arrangement  exhaust  the  most 
instructed  interest.  Just  when  the  amateur  archae 
ologist,  however,  is  sinking  under  his  learning,  the 
custodian  opens  a  window  and  lets  him  look  out  on 
a  beautiful  hill  beyond  certain  gardens,  where  a  bird 
is  singing  angelically.  I  suppose  it  is  the  same  bird 
which  sings  all  through  these  papers,  and  I  am  sorry 
I  do  not  know  its  name.  But  we  will  call  it  a  black 
cap:  blackcap  has  a  sweet,  saucy  sound  like  its  own 
note,  and  is  the  pretty  translation  of  caponero,  a  name 
which  the  bird  might  gladly  know  itself  by. 

Villa  Papa  Giulio  is  but  a  little  place  compared 
with  something  on  the  scale  of  the  Villa  Pamfili 

Doria.  though  from  its  casino  it  has  a  charm  far  be- 

148 


CASINO    OF    THE    VILLA    DORIA    AND    GARDENS 


OF  THE 

f  UNIVERSITY    J 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

yond  that.  What  it  may  once  have  been  as  to  grounds 
and  gardens  there  is  little  to  show  now,  and  the  Pam- 
fili  Doria  itself  had  not  much  to  show  in  gardens, 
though  it  had  grounds,  and  to  spare.  It  is,  in  fact, 
a  large  park,  though  whether  larger  than  the  Villa 
Borghese  I  cannot  say.  But  it  has  not  been  taken  by 
the  state,  and  it  is  so  far  off  on  its  hills  that  it  is 
safe  from  the  overrunning  of  city  feet.  It  is  safe  even 
from  city  wheels,  unless  they  are  those  of  livery  car 
riages,  for  numbered  cabs  are  not  suffered  in  its  proud 
precincts.  You  partake  of  this  pride  when  you  come 
in  your  rubber-tired  remise,  and  have  the  consolation 
of  being  part  of  the  beautiful  exclusiveness.  It  costs 
you  fifteen  francs,  but  one  must  suffer  for  being  pa 
trician,  even  for  a  single  afternoon.  Outside  we  had 
the  satisfaction  of  seeing  innumerable  numbered  cabs 
drawn  up,  and  within  the  villa  gates  of  meeting  or 
passing  the  plebeians  who  had  come  in  them,  and  were 
now  walking  while  we  were  smoothly  rolling  in  our 
victoria.  The  day  was  everything  we  could  ask,  very 
warm  and  bright  below  the  Janiculum,  on  which  we 
had  mounted,  and  here  on  the  summit  delicious  with 
cool  currents  of  air.  There  had  been  beggars,  on  the 
way  up,  at  every  point  where  our  horses  must  be  walk 
ed,  and  we  had  paid  our  way  handsomely,  so  that  when 
we  went  back  they  bowed  without  asking  again;  this 
is  a  convention  at  Eome  which  no  self-respecting  beg 
gar  will  violate ;  they  all  touch  their  hats  in  recognition 
of  it. 

The  beautiful  prospect  from  a  certain  curve  of  the 
drive  after  you  have  passed  the  formal  sunken  gar 
den,  at  which  you  pause,  is  the  greatest  beauty  of  the 
Villa  Pamfili  Doria.  You  stop  to  look  at  it  by  the 
impulse  of  your  coachman,  and  then  you  keep  on 
driving  round,  in  the  long  ellipse  which  the  road  de- 

149 


BOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

scribes,  through  grassy  and  woody  slopes  and  levels, 
watered  by  a  pleasant  stream,  and  through  long  aisles 
of  pine  and  ilex.  We  thought  twice  round  was  enough, 
and  told  the  driver  so,  to  his  evident  surprise  and 
to  our  own  regret,  so  far  as  the  long  aisle  of  ilex 
was  concerned,  for  I  do  not  suppose  there  is  a 
more  perfect  thing  of  its  kind  in  the  world.  The 
shade  under  the  thick  sun-proof  roofing  of  horizontal 
boughs  was  practically  as  old  as  night,  and  on  our 
second  passage  of  its  dim  length  it  had  some  Capuchin 
monks  walking  down  it,  who  formed  the  fittest  possible 
human  interest  in  the  perspective.  Off  on  the  grass  at 
one  side  some  TJrsuline  nuns  were  sitting  with  their 
pupils,  laughing  and  talking,  and  one  nun  was  playing 
ball  with  the  smaller  girls,  and  mingling  with  their 
shouts  her  own  gay,  innocent  cries  of  joy  as  she  romped 
among  them.  Nothing  could  have  been  prettier,  sweet 
er,  or  better  suited  to  the  place;  all  was  very  simple, 
and  apparently  the  whole  place  was  hospitably  free 
to  the  poor  women  wrho  ranged  over  it,  digging  chiccory 
for  salad  out  of  the  meadows.  The  daisies  were  thick 
as  white  clover,  and  the  harsh  purple  of  the  anemones 
showed  everywhere. 

The  casino  is  plainer  than  the  casino  of  the  Villa 
Borghese,  and  is  not  public  like  that;  its  sculptures 
have  been  taken  to  the  Doria  palace  in  the  city;  and 
there  is  no  longer  any  excuse  for  curiosity  even  to  try 
penetrating  it.  It  stands  on  the  left  of  the  road  by 
which  you  leave  the  villa,  and  to  the  right  on  the 
grassy  incline  in  full  view  of  the  casino  was  something 
that  puzzled  us  at  first.  It  did  not  seem  probable  that 
the  gigantic  capital  letters  grown  in  box  should  be 
spelling  the  English  name  Mary,  but  it  proved  that 
they  were,  and  later  it  proved  that  this  was  the  name 
of  the  noble  English  lady  whom  the  late  Prince  Pam- 

"  150 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

iili  Doria  had  married.  Whether  they  marked  her 
grave  or  merely  commemorated  her,  it  was  easy  to  im 
pute  a  pathos  to  the  fancy  of  having  them  there,  which 
it  might  not  have  been  so  easy  to  verify.  You  can 
not  attempt  to  pass  over  any  ground  in  Rome  without 
danger  of  sinking  into  historical  depths  from  which 
it  will  be  hard  to  extricate  yourself,  and  it  is  best  to 
heed  one's  steps  and  keep  them  to  the  day's  activities. 
But  one  could  not  well  visit  the  Villa  Pamfili  Doria 
without  at  least  wishing  to  remember  that  in  1849 
Garibaldi  held  it  for  weeks  against  the  whole  French 
army,  in  his  defence  of  republican  Rome.  A  votive 
temple  within  the  villa  grounds  commemorates  the  in 
vaders  who  fell  in  this  struggle;  on  a  neighboring 
height  the  Italian  leader  triumphs  in  the  monument 
his  adoring  country  has  raised  to  him. 

If  we  are  to  believe  the  censorious  Hare,  the  love  of 
the  hero's  countrymen  went  rather  far  when  the  Ro 
man  municipality,  to  please  him,  tried  to  change  the 
course  of  the  Tiber  in  conformity  with  a  scheme  of 
his,  and  so  spoiled  the  beauty  of  the  Farnesina  garden 
without  effecting  a  too-difficult  piece  of  engineering. 
The  less  passionate  Murray  says  merely  that  "  a  large 
slice  of  this  garden  was  cut  off  to  widen  the  river  for 
the  Tiber  embankment,"  and  let  us  hope  that  it  was 
no  worse.  I  suppose  we  must  have  seen  the  villa  in  its 
glory  when  we  went,  in  1864,  to  see  the  Raphael  frescos 
in  the  casino  there,  but  in  the  touching  melancholy  of 
the  wasted  and  neglected  grounds  we  easily  accepted 
the  present  as  an  image  of  the  past.  For  all  we  re 
membered,  the  weed-grown,  green-mossed  gravel-paths 
of  the  sort  of  bewildered  garden  that  remained,  with 
its  quenched  fountain,  its  vases  of  dead  or  dying  plants, 
and  its  dishevelled  shrubbery,  were  what  had  always 

been ;  and  it  was  of  such  a  charm  that  we  were  grate- 

151 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

fully  content  with  it.  The  truth  is,  one  cannot  do 
much  with  beauty  in  perfect  repair;  the  splendor  that 
belongs  to  somebody  else,  unless  it  belongs  also  to  every 
body  else,  wounds  one's  vulgar  pride  and  inspires  envi 
ous  doubts  of  the  owner's  rightful  possession.  But 
when  the  blight  of  ruin  has  fallen  upon  it,  when  di 
lapidation  and  disintegration  have  begun  their  work  of 
atonement  and  exculpation,  then  our  hearts  melt  in 
compassion  of  the  waning  magnificence  and  in  a  soft 
pity  for  the  expropriated  possessor,  to  whom  we  at 
tribute  every  fine  and  endearing  quality.  It  is  this 
which  makes  us  such  friends  of  the  past  and  such 
critics  of  the  present,  and  enables  us  to  enjoy  the  ad 
versity  of  others  without  a  pang  of  the  jealousy  which 
their  prosperity  excites. 

There  was  much  to  please  a  somewhat  peculiar  taste 
in  our  visit  to  the  Farnesina.  The  gateman,  being  an 
Italian  official,  had  not  been  at  the  gate  when  we  ar 
rived,  but  came  running  and  smiling  from  his  gossip 
with  the  door-keeper  of  the  casino,  and  this  was  a  good 
deal  in  itself;  but  the  door-keeper,  amiably  obese,  was 
better  still  in  her  acceptance  of  the  joke  with  which 
the  hand-mirror  for  the  easier  study  of  the  roof  frescos 
was  accepted.  "  It  is  more  convenient,"  she  siiggested, 
and  at  the  counter-suggestion,  "  Yes,  especially  for  peo 
ple  with  short  necks,"  she  shook  with  gelatinous  laugh 
ter,  and  burst  into  the  generous  cry,  "  Oh,  how 
delightful!"  Perhaps  this  was  because  she,  too,  had 
experienced  the  advantage  of  perusing  the  frescos  in 
the  hand-mirror's  reversal.  At  any  rate,  she  would 
not  be  satisfied  till  she  had  returned  a  Roland  for 
that  easy  Oliver.  Her  chance  came  in  showing  a 
Rubens  in  one  of  the  rooms,  with  the  master's  usual 
assortment  of  billowy  beauties,  when  she  could  say 

— and  she  ought  to  have  known — that  they  had  eaten 

152 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

too  much  macaroni.     It  was  not  much  of  a  joke;  but 
one  hears  so  few  jokes  in  Home. 

Do  I  linger  in  this  study  of  simple  character  because 
I  feel  myself  unequal  to  the  ecstasies  which  the  frescos 
7  of  Kaphael  and  his  school  in  that  pleasure  dome  de 
manded  of  me?  Something  like  that,  I  suppose,  but 
I  do  not  pride  myself  on  my  inability.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  the  coloring  of  the  frescos  had  lost  whatever 
tenderness  it  once  had ;  and  that  what  was  never  meant 
to  be  matter  of  conscious  perception,  but  only  of  the 
vague  sense  which  it  is  the  office  of  decoration  to  im 
part,  had  grown  less  pleasing  with  the  passage  of  time. 
There  in  the  first  hall  was  the  story  of  Cupid  and 
Psyche  in  the  literal  illustration  of  Apuleius,  and  there 
in  another  hall  was  Galatea  on  her  shell  with  her 
Nymphs  and  Tritons  and  Amorini;  and  there  were 
Perseus  and  Medusa  and  Tcarus  and  Phaeton  and  the 
rest  of  them.  But,  if  I  gave  way  to  all  the  frankness 
of  my  nature,  I  should  own  the  subjects  fallen  silly 
through  the  old  age  of  an  outworn  life  and  redeemed 
only  by  the  wonderful  skill  with  which  they  are  ren 
dered.  At  the  same  time,  I  will  say  in  self-defence 
that,  if  I  had  a  very  long  summer  in  which  to  keep 
coming  and  dwelling  long  hours  in  the  company  of 
these  frescos,  I  think  I  might  live  back  into  the 
spirit  which  invented  the  fables,  and  enjoy  even  more 
the  amusing  taste  that  was  never  tired  of  their  repeti 
tion.  Masterly  conception  and  incomparable  execution 
are  there  in  histories  which  are  the  dreams  of  worlds 
almost  as  extinct  as  the  dead  planets  whose  last  rays 
still  reach  us  and  in  whose  death  -  glimmer  we  can 
fancy,  if  we  will,  a  unity  of  life  with  our  own  not 
impossible  nor  improbable.  But  more  than  some  such 
appeal  the  Raphaels  and  the  Giulio  Romanos  of  the 
Farnesina  hardly  make  to  the  eye  untrained  in  the  art 

J53 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

which  created  them,  or  unversed  in  the  technique  by 
which  they  will  live  till  the  last  line  moulders  and  the 
last  tint  fades. 

We  came  out  and  stood  a  long  time  looking  up  in 
the  pale  afternoon  light  at  the  beautiful  face  of  the 
tenderly  aging  but  not  yet  decrepit  casino.  It  was 
utterly  charming,  and  it  prompted  many  vagaries  which 
J  I  might  easily  have  mistaken  for  ideas.  This  is  per 
haps  the  best  of  such  experiences,  and,  after  you  have 
been  with  famous  works  of  art  and  have  got  them  well 
over  and  done  with,  it  is  natural  and  it  is  not  unjust 
that  you  should  wish  to  make  them  some  return,  if 
not  in  kind,  then  in  quantity.  You  will  try  to  believe 
that  you  have  thought  about  them,  and  you  should 
not  too  strictly  inquire  as  to  the  fact.  It  is  some  such 
forbearance  that  accounts  for  a  good  deal  of  the  ap 
preciation  and  even  the  criticism  of  works  of  art. 


IX 
DEAMATIC    INCIDENTS 

If  the  joke  of  the  door-keeper  at  the  Farnesina  was 
not  so  delicate  in  any  sense  as  some  other  jokes,  it  had, 
at  least,  the  merit  of  being  voluntary.  In  fact,  it  is 
the  only  voluntary  joke  which  I  remember  hearing  in 
the  Tuscan  tongue  from  the  Roman  mouth  during  a 
stay  of  three  months  in  the  Eternal  City.  This  was 
very  disappointing,  for  I  had  always  thought  of  the 
Italians  as  gay  and  as  liking  to  laugh  and  to  make 
laugh.  In  Venice,  where  I  used  to  live,  the  gondoliers 
were  full  of  jokes,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  and  an 
infection  of  humor  seemed  to  spread  from  them  to  all 
the  lower  classes,  who  were  as  ready  to  joke  as  the 

154 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

lower  classes  of  Irish,  and  who  otherwise  often  re 
minded  one  of  them.  The  joking  habit  extended  as  far 
down  as  Florence,  even  as  Siena,  and  at  Naples  I  had 
found  cahmen  who  tempered  their  predacity  with  bon 
homie.  But  the  Romans  were  preferably  serious,  at 
least  with  the  average  American,  though,  if  I  had 
tried  them  in  their  English  instead  of  my  Italian,  it 
might  have  been  different.  At  times  I  thought  they 
felt  the  weight  of  being  Romans,  as  it  had  descended 
to  them  from  antiquity,  and  that  the  strain  of  sup 
porting  it  had  sobered  them.  In  any  case,  though  there 
was  shouting  by  night,  and  some  singing  of  not  at  all 
the  Neapolitan  quality  and  still  less  the  Neapolitan 
quantity,  there  was  no  laughing,  or,  as  far  as  I  could 
see,  smiling  by  day. 

Yet  one  day  there  was  a  tragedy  in  front  of  the  hotel 
next  ours  which  would  have  made  a  dog  laugh,  as  the 
saying  is,  unless  it  was  a  Roman  dog.  It  was  a  quarrel, 
more  or  less  murderous,  between  a  fat,  elderly  man  and 
an  agile  stripling  of  not  half  his  age  or  girth,  of  whom 
the  tumult  about  them  permitted  only  fleeting  glimpses. 
By  these  the  elder  seemed  to  be  laboriously  laying 
about  him  with  a  five-foot  club  and  the  younger  to 
be  making  wild  dashes  at  him  and  then  escaping  to 
the  skirts  of  the  cabmen,  mounted  and  dismounted, 
who  surrounded  them.  Now  and  then  a  cabman  drove 
out  of  the  mellay  very  excitedly,  and  then  turned  and 
drove  excitedly  back  into  the  thick  of  it.  All  the  while 
the  dismounted  cabmen  pressed  about  the  combatants 
with  their  hands  on  one  another's  backs  and  their  heads 
peering  carefully  over  one  another's  shoulders.  On  the 
very  outermost  rim  of  these,  more  careful  than  any, 
was  one  of  those  strange  images  whom  you  see  about 
Italian  towns  in  couples,  with  red  -  braided  swallow 
tail  coats  and  cocked  hats,  those  carabinieres — namely, 

155 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

who  are  soldiers  in  war  and  policemen  in  times  of 
peace.  Any  spectator  from  a  foreign  land  would  have 
thought  it  the  business  of  such  an  officer  of  the  law  to 
press  in  and  stop  the  fighting;  but  he  did  not  so  in 
terpret  his  duty.  He  gingerly  touched  the  shoulders 
next  him  with  the  tips  of  his  fingers,  and  now  and  then 
lifted  himself  on  the  tips  of  his  toes  to  look  if  the 
fight  had  stopped  of  itself  or  not. 

At  last  the  fat,  elderly  man,  whom  his  friends — and 
all  the  throng  except  that  one  wicked  youth  seemed  his 
friends  —  were  caressing  in  untimely  embraces  and 
coaxing  in  tones  of  tender  entreaty,  burst  from  them, 
and,  aiming  at  the  head  of  his  enemy,  flung  his  club, 
to  the  imminent  peril  of  all  the  bystanders,  and  missed 
him.  Then  he  frankly  put  himself  in  the  hands  of 
his  friends,  who  lifted  him  into  a  cab,  where  one  of 
them  mounted  with  him  and  stayed  him  on  the  seat, 
while  the  cabman  drove  rapidly  away.  The  wicked 
youth  had  vanished  in  unknown  space;  but  the  cara- 
biniere,  attended  by  a  group  of  admirers,  marched  bold 
ly  up  the  middle  of  the  street,  and  the  crowd,  with 
whatever  reluctance,  persuaded  itself  to  disperse, 
though  the  cabmen,  to  the  number  of  ten  or  twenty, 
continued  to  drive  around  in  concentric  circles  and 
irregular  ellipses.  In  five  minutes  not  an  eye-witness 
of  the  fray  remained,  such  being  the  fear  of  the  law, 
not  so  much  in  those  who  break  it  as  in  those  who  see 
it  broken,  and  who  dread  incurring  the  vengeance  of 
the  culprit,  if  he  is  acquitted,  or  of  his  family  if  he 
is  convicted  on  their  testimony.  The  quarrel  had  gone 
on  a  full  quarter  of  an  hour,  but  the  concierge  of  the 
hotel  in  front  of  which  it  had  raged  professed  to  have 
known  nothing  of  it,  having,  he  said,  been  in-doors  all 
the  time.  A  cabman  whom  we  eliminated  from  the 
hysterical  company  of  his  fellows  and  persuaded  to 

156 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

drive  us  away  to  see  a  church  attempted  to  ignore  the 
whole  affair  when  asked  about  it.  With  difficulty  he 
could  be  made  to  recollect  it,  and  then  he  dismissed  it 
as  a  trifle.  "  Oh,"  he  said,  "  chiacchiere  di  donnic- 
ciuole,"  which  is  something  like  "  Clatter  of  little 
old  women,"  a  thing  not  worth  noticing.  He  had, 
if  we  could  believe  him,  not  cared  to  know  how  it 
began  or  ended,  and  he  would  not  talk  about  it. 

Later,  still  interested  by  the  action  of  the  carabiniere 
in  guarding  the  public  security  in  his  own  person,  I 
asked  an  Italian  gentleman,  who  owned  to  have  seen 
the  affair,  why  the  officer  did  not  break  through  the 
crowd  and  arrest  the  fighters.  "  They  had  knives,"  he 
explained,  and  it  seemed  a  good  reason  for  the  cara- 
biniere's  forbearance,  as  far  as  it  went;  but  I  thought 
of  the  short  work  the  brute  locust  of  an  Irish  police 
man  at  home  would  have  made  of  the  knives.  My 
friend  said  he  had  himself  gone  to  one  of  the  municipal 
police  who  was  looking  on  at  a  pleasant  remove  and 
said,  "  Those  fellows  have  knives ;  they  will  kill  each 
other,"  and  the  municipal  policeman  had  answered, 
with  the  calm  of  an  antique  Roman  sentinel  on  duty 
in  time  of  earthquake,  "  Let  them  kill." 

I  could  not  approve  of  so  much  impartiality,  but 
afterward  it  seemed  to  me  I  had  little  to  be  proud  of 
in  the  shorter  and  easier  method  of  our  own  police,  as 
contrasted  with  the  caution  of  that  Roman  carabiniere 
who  left  the  combatants  to  the  mild  might  of  their 
friends'  moral  suasion.  It  was  better  that  the  youth 
should  escape,  if  he  did,  without  a  vexatious  criminal 
trial;  he  may  have  been  no  more  to  blame  than  the 
other,  who,  I  learned,  had  been  carried  off,  in  the 
honorable  manner  I  saw,  to  a  doctor  and  had  his  stab 
looked  to.  It  was  not  dangerous,  and  the  whole  affair 
ended  so.  Besides,  as  I  learned,  still  longer  afterward, 

157 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

when  it  was  quite  safe  for  a  cabman  from  the  same 
stand  to  speak,  the  combatants  were  not  Romans,  but 
peasants  from  the  Campagna,  who  had  come  in  with 
their  market-carts  and  had  become  heated  with  the  bad 
spirits  which  the  peasants  have  the  habit  of  drinking 
five  or  six  glasses  of  when  they  visit  Rome.  "  What 
we  call  benzine/'  my  cabman  explained.  "  We  Ro 
mans,"  he  added  from  a  moral  height,  "  drink  only  a 
glass  or  two  of  wine,  and  we  never  carry  knives." 

He  may  have  been  right  concerning  the  peacefulness 
of  the  Romans  and  their  sobriety,  and  I  am  bound  to 
say  that  I  never  saw  any  other  violent  scene  during 
my  stay.  Sometimes  I  heard  loud  quarrelling  among 
our  cabmen,  and  sometimes  I  was  the  subject  of  it, 
when  one  driver  snatched  me,  an  impartial  prey,  from 
another.  But  the  bad  feeling,  if  there  was  really  any, 
quickly  passed,  and  some  other  day  I  fell  to  the  cab 
man  who  had  been  wronged  of  me.  I  had  not  always 
the  fine  sense  of  being  booty  which  I  had  one  day  on 
coming  out  of  a  church  and  blundering  toward  the 
wrong  cab.  Then  the  driver  whom  I  had  left  waiting 
at  the  door  seized  me  from  the  very  cab  of  an  unjust 
rival  with  the  indignant  cry,  "E  roba  mia!"  (He's 
my  stuff!).  It  was  not  quite  the  phrase  I  would  have 
chosen,  but  I  had  no  quarrel,  generally  speaking,  with 
the  cabmen  of  Rome.  To  be  sure,  they  have  not  a 
rubber  tire  among  them,  and  their  dress  leaves  much 
to  be  desired  in  professional  uniformity.  Not  one  of 
them  looks  like  a  cabman,  but  many  of  them  in  pict- 
uresqueness  of  hats  and  coats  look  like  brigands.  I 
think  they  would  each  prefer  to  have  a  fur-lined  over 
coat,  which  the  Roman  of  any  class  likes  to  wear  well 
into  the  spring;  but  they  mostly  content  themselves 
with  an  Astrakhan  collar,  more  or  less  mangy.  For  the 
rest,  some  of  them  will  point  out  the  objects  of  interest 

158 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

as  you  pass,  and  they  are  proud  to  do  so;  they  are  not 
extortionate,  and,  if  you  overpay  them  ever  so  little 
(which  is  quite  worth  while),  they  will  not  stand  upon 
a  matter  of  lawful  fare.  A  two-cent  tip  contents  them, 
one  of  four  cents  makes  them  your  friends  for  life; 
as  for  a  five-cent  tip,  I  do  not  know  what  it  does,  but 
I  advise  the  reader  when  he  goes  to  Rome  to  try  it 
and  see. 

One  fine  thing  is  that  the  cabmen  are  in  great  super 
abundance  in  Rome,  and  the  number  of  barrel-ribbed, 
ewe-necked,  and  broken-kneed  horses  is  in  no  greater 
proportion  than  in  Paris.  Still,  the  average  is  large, 
though,  if  you  will  go  to  the  stand,  you  may  select  any 
horse  you  please  without  offence.  It  was  a  cheerful 
sight,  verging  upon  gayety,  to  see  every  morning  the 
crowd  of  cabs  at  our  stand  and  to  hear  the  drivers' 
talk,  sometimes  rising  into  protest  and  mutual  upbraid 
ing.  But  one  Thursday  morning,  the  brightest  of  the 
spring,  a  Sunday  silence  had  fallen  on  the  place,  and 
a  Sabbath  solitude  deepened  to  the  eye  the  mystery  that 
had  first  addressed  itself  to  the  ear.  Then,  suddenly, 
we  knew  that  we  were  in  the  presence  of  that  Italian 
conception  of  a  general  strike  which  interprets  itself 
as  a  sciopero.  It  is  saying  very  little  of  that  two  days'  I 
strike  to  say  that  it  was  far  the  most  impressive  ex 
perience  of  our  Roman  winter ;  in  some  sort  it  was  the 
most  impressive  experience  of  my  life,  for  I  beheld  in 
it  a  reduced  and  imperfect  image  of  what  labor  could 
do  if  it  universally  chose  to  do  nothing.  The  dream 
of  William  Morris  was  that  a  world  which  we  know 
is  pretty  much  wrong  could  be  put  right  by  this 
simple  process.  The  trouble  has  always  been  to  get 
all  sorts  of  labor  to  join  in  the  universal  strike,  but 
in  the  Italian  sciopero  of  four  years  ago  the  miracle 

was  wrought  from  one  end  of  the  peninsula  to  the  other. 

159 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

In  the  Roman  strike  of  last  April  a  partial  miracle 
of  the  same  nature  was  illustratively  wrought,  with  the 
same  alarming  effect  on  the  imagination. 

As  with  the  national  strike,  the  inspiration  of  the 
Roman  strike  came  from  the  government's  violent  deal 
ing  with  a  popular  manifestation  which  only  threat 
ened  to  be  mischievous.  A  stone-mason  was  killed  hy 
falling  from  a  scaffolding,  and  his  funeral  was  attend 
ed  by  so  many  hundreds,  amounting  to  thousands, 
of  workmen  that  the  police  conceived,  not  quite  un 
justifiably,  that  it  was  to  be  made  the  occasion  of 
a  demonstration,  especially  as  the  proposed  route  of 
the  procession  lay  through  the  Piazza  di  Venezia,  un 
der  the  windows  of  the  Austrian  Embassy,  Austria 
being  always  a  red  rag  to  the  Italian  bull  and  peculiar 
ly  irritating  through  the  reservation  of  the  Palazzo 
Yenezia  to  the  ancient  enemy  at  the  cession  of  Venice 
to  Italy.  The  mourners  were  therefore  forbidden  to 
pass  that  way,  and  the  police  forces  were  drawn  up 
in  the  Piazza  Gesu,  before  the  Jesuit  church,  with 
a  strong  detachment  of  troops  to  support  them.  Their 
wisdom  in  all  this  was  very  questionable  after  what 
followed,  for  the  mourners  insisted  on  their  rights  and 
would  go  no  way  but  through  the  Piazza  di  Venezia. 
When  the  dispute  was  at  its  height  two  wagons  laden 
with  bricks  appeared  on  the  scene.  The  mourners 
swarmed  upon  them,  broke  the  bricks  into  bats,  and 
hurled  them  at  the  police.  They  had  apparently  the 
simple-hearted  expectation  that  the  police  would  stand 
this  indefinitely,  but  the  brickbats  hurt,  and  in  their 
paroxysms  of  pain  the  sufferers  began  firing  their  re 
volvers  at  the  mourners.  Four  persons  were  killed, 
with  the  usual  proportion  of  innocent  spectators.  At 
night  the  labor  unions  met,  and  the  sciopero  was  pro 
claimed  as  an  expression  of  the  popular  indignation; 

160 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

but  the  police  had  been  left  with  the  victory.  Whether 
it  was  not  in  some  sort  a  defeat  I  do  not  know,  but  a 
retired  English  officer,  whom  I  had  no  reason  to  think 
a  radical,  said  to  me  that  he  thought  it  a  great  mistake 
to  have  let  the  police  oppose  the  people  with  firearms. 
Soldiers  should  alone  be  used  for  such  work ;  they  alone 
knew  when  to  fire  and  when  to  stop,  and  they  never 
acted  without  orders.  In  fact,  the  troops  supporting 
the  police  took  no  part  in  the  fray,  as  the  workmen's 
press  recognized  with  patriotic  rejoicing. 

The  next  morning  a  signal  silence  prevailed  through 
out  the  city,  where  not  a  wheel  stirred  or  the  sound 
of  a  hoof  broke  the  hush  of  the  streets.  We  had  noted 
already  that  there  were  seven  Sundays  every  week  in 
Rome,  as  was  fit  in  the  capital  of  the  Christian  re 
ligion,  but  this  Thursday  was  of  an  intenser  Sabbath 
stillness  than  any  first  day  of  the  week  that  we  had 
yet  known.  There  was  the  clack  of  passing  feet  in 
the  street  under  our  windows,  but  we  looked  out  upon 
a  yawning  void  where  the  busy  cabs  had  clustered,  and 
the  cabmen  had  socially  chaffed  and  quarrelled,  and 
entreated  the  stranger  in  the  cabman's  superstition  that 
a  stranger  never  knows  when  he  wants  a  cab.  Now 
he  could  have  walked  all  over  Rome  without  being  once 
invited  to  drive.  Except  for  here  and  there  a  private 
carriage,  or  the  coupe  evidently  of  a  doctor,  the  streets 
were  empty,  and  the  tourists  had  to  join  the  citizens 
in  their  pedestrian  exercise. 

The  shopkeepers  had  been  notified  to  close  their 
places  of  business  on  the  tacit  condition  of  having 
their  windows  broken  for  non-compliance,  but  in  the 
early  forenoon  they  were  still  slowly  and  partially 
putting  up  their  shutters.  You  could  get  in  through 
the  darkened  doors  up  till  noon ;  after  that  it  was  more 
and  more  difficult.  But  it  would  be  hard  to  say  how 
11  161 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

far  and  how  deep  the  sciopero  went.  In  our  hotel  we 
knew  of  it  only  the  second  day  through  the  failure  of 
the  morning  rolls,  for  there  had  been  no  baking  over 
night.  Most  of  the  in-door  service  was  of  Swiss  or 
other  foreign  extraction,  and  the  mechanism  of  our 
comfort,  our  luxury,  was  operated  as  usual.  Our 
floor  facchino,  or  porter,  went  to  the  meeting  of  the 
unions  in  the  evening,  being  an  Italian.  Otherwise 
the  strike  fell  especially  on  the  helpless  and  guilt 
less  foreigner,  who  might  be,  and  very  often  was,  in 
sympathy  with  the  strikers.  He  had  to  walk  to  the 
ruins,  the  galleries,  the  gardens,  the  churches,  if  he 
wanted  anything  of  them;  he  could  not  get  a  carriage 
even  from  a  stable. 

Between  the  hotels  and  the  station  the  omnibus 
traffic  was  suspended.  The  railroads  being  nation 
al,  push  -  carts  manned  by  the  government  employes 
carried  the  baggage  to  and  fro,  but  if  one  wanted  to 
arrive  or  depart  one  had  to  do  it  on  foot.  Tragical 
scenes  presented  themselves  in  relation  to  this  fact. 
In  the  afternoon,  as  I  walked  up  the  street  toward  the 
~reat  railroad  station,  I  saw  coming  down  the  middle 
of  it  a  strange  procession  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  of 
every  age,  gray-haired  elders  and  children  of  tender 
years,  mixed  with  porters  and  push-carts,  footing  it 
into  the  region  of  the  fashionable  hotels.  They  were 
all  laden  according  to  their  strength,  and  people  who 
had  never  done  a  stroke  of  work  in  their  lives  were 
actually  carrying  their  own  hand-bags,  rugs,  and  um 
brella-cases.  It  was  terrible. 

*  It  was  terrible  for  what  it  was,  and  terrible  for 
what  it  suggested,  if  ever  that  poor  dull  beast  of 
labor  took  the  bit  permanently  into  its  teeth,  or,  worse 
yet,  hung  back  in  the  breeching  and  inexorably  balked. 

What  would  then  become  of  us  others,  us  ladies  and 

162 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

gentlemen  who  had  never  done  a  stroke  of  work  and 
never  wished  to  do  one?  Should  we  be  forced  to  the 
hard  necessity  of  beginning?  Could  we  remain  in  the 
comfortable  belief  that  we  gave  work,  or  must  we  be 
made  to  own  distastefully  that  it  had  always  been  given 
to  us  ?  Should  we  be  able  to  flatter  ourselves  with  the 
notion  that  we  had  once  had  dependents  because  we 
had  money,  or  should  we  realize  that  we  had  always 
been  dependents  because  of  our  having  money? 

These  were  the  hateful  doubts  which  the  Roman 
strike  suggested  to  the  witness,  or,  at  least,  one  of 
the  witnesses,  who  has  here  the  pleasure  of  unburden 
ing  himself  upon  the  reader.  Yet  there  was  some 
thing  amusing  in  the  situation ;  there  was  a  joke — that 
rarest  of  all  things  in  Rome — latent  in  it,  which  one 
suspected  only  from  the  amiable,  the  all-but-smiling 
behavior  of  the  strikers.  There  was  not  the  slightest 
disorder  during  the  two  days  that  the  strike  lasted. 
When  it  was  called  off  at  a  meeting  of  the  unions 
on  Saturday  night,  one  of  the  seven  Sundays  of  the 
Roman  week  dawned  upon  an  activity  at  the  neighbor 
ing  cab-stand  no  peacefuller  and  not  much  gayer  than 
the  silence  and  solitude  of  the  mornings  previous.  As 
for  the  general  effect  in  the  city,  you  would  hardly 
have  known  that  particular  Sunday  from  those  which 
had  gone  by  the  names  of  Friday  and  Saturday. 
Throughout  Italy  there  is  now  a  Sunday-closing  law 
whose  effect  in  a  land  once  of  joyous  Sabbaths  strikes 
some  such  chill  to  the  heart  as  pierces  it  in  Boston 
on  that  day,  or  in  the  farther  eastern  or  western  ave 
nues  of  New  York,  when  the  Family  Entrances  are 
religiously  locked. 

The  Italian  state  has,  in  fact,  so  far  taken  the  mat 
ter  in  charge  as  to  have  established  a  secular  holiday, 
coming  once  a  week,  which  has  almost  disestablished 

163 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

the  holidays  of  the  Church,  formerly  of  much  more  fre 
quent  occurrence.  This  secular  holiday,  which  every 
workman  has  a  right  to,  he  may  neither  give  nor  sell 
to  his  master.  He  may  not  even  loaf  it  away  in  the 
place  where  he  works,  lest  he  should  be  clandestinely 
employed.  He  must  go  out  •  of  the  shop  or  house  or 
factory  or  foundry,  and  spend  his  ten  hours  where  he 
cannot  be  suspected  of  employing  them  in  productive 
industry  for  hire.  This  law  has  been  enacted  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  will  of  the  unions  and  no  doubt  in 
correction  of  great  abuses.  Neither  masters  nor  men 
now  recognize  the  old-fashioned  festa  as  they  once  did. 
Whether  the  men  like  the  new  holiday  so  well,  I  did 
not  get  any  of  them  explicitly  to  say.  Of  course,  they 
cannot  all  take  it  at  once ;  they  must  take  it  turn  about, 
and  they  may  not  find  their  enforced  leisure  so  lively 
as  the  old  voluntary  saints'  days,  when  their  comrades 
were  resting,  too.  As  for  the  masters,  one  of  the  em 
ployers  of  labor,  whom  I  found  filling  his  man's  place, 
would  merely  say :  "  It  is  the  new  law.  No  doubt  we 
shall  adjust  ourselves  to  it."  He  did  not  complain. 


x 

SEEING   ROME   AS    ROMANS    SEE    US 

Shortly  after  our  settlement  in  the  Eternal  City, 
which  has  so  much  more  time  to  be  seen  than  the  so- 
journer  has  to  see  it,  I  pleased  myself  with  the  no 
tion  of  surprising  it  by  visiting  in  a  studied  succession 
the  many  different  piazzas.  This,  I  thought,  would  ac 
quaint  me  with  the  different  churches,  and  on  the  way 
to  them  I  should  make  friends  with  the  various  quar 
ters.  Everything,  old  or  new,  would  have  the  charm 

164 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

of  the  unexpected;  no  lurking  ruin  would  escape  me; 
no  monument,  whether  column  or  obelisk,  statue, 
"  storied  urn  or  animated  bust "  or  mere  tablet,  would 
be  safe  from  my  indirect  research.  Before  I  knew  it, 
I  should  know  Rome  by  heart,  and  this  would  be  some 
thing  to  boast  of  long  after  I  had  forgotten  it. 

I  could  not  say  what  suggested  so  admirable  a  no 
tion,  but  it  may  have  been  coming  by  chance  one  day 
on  the  statue  of  Giordano  Bruno,  and  realizing  that  it 
stood  in  the  Campo  di  Fiori,  on  the  spot  where  he  was 
burned  three  hundred  years  ago  for  abetting  Coper 
nicus  in  his  sacrilegious  system  of  astronomy,  and 
for  divers  other  heresies,  as  well  as  the  violation  of 
his  monastic  vows.  I  saw  it  with  the  thrill  which 
the  solemn  figure,  heavily  draped,  deeply  hooded, 
must  impart  as  mere  mystery,  and  I  made  haste 
to  come  again  in  the  knowledge  of  what  it  was  that 
had  moved  me  so.  Naturally  I  was  not  moved  in 
the  same  measure  a  second  time.  It  was  not  that 
the  environment  was,  to  my  mind,  unworthy  the  mar 
tyr,  though  I  found  the  market  at  the  foot  of  the 
statue  given  over,  not  to  flowers,  as  the  name  of  the 
place  might  imply,  but  to  such  homely  fruits  of  the 
earth  as  potatoes,  carrots,  cabbages,  and,  above  all, 
onions.  There  was  a  placidity  in  the  simple  scene  that 
pleased  me:  I  liked  the  quiet  gossiping  of  the  old 
market-women  over  their  baskets  of  vegetables ;  the  con 
fidential  fashion  in  which  a  gentle  crone  came  to  my 
elbow  and  begged  of  me  in  undertone,  as  if  she  meant 
the  matter  to  go  no  further,  was  even  flattering.  But 
the  solemnity  of  the  face  that  looked  down  on  the 
scene  was  spoiled  by  the  ribbon  drawn  across  it  to 
fasten  a  wreath  on  the  head,  in  the  effort  of  some  mis 
taken  zealot  of  free  thought  to  enhance  its  majesty 
by  decoration.  It  was  the  moment  when  the  society 

165 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

calling  itself  by  Giordano  Bruno's  name  was  making 
an  effort  for  the  suppression  of  ecclesiastical  instruc 
tion  in  the  public  schools;  and  on  the  anniversary  of 
his  martyrdom  his  effigy  had  suffered  this  unmeant 
hurt.  In  all  the  churches  there  had  been  printed  ap 
peals  to  parents  against  the  agnostic  attack  on  the  altar 
and  the  home,  and  there  had  been  some  of  the  open  tu 
mults  which  seem  in  Rome  to  express  every  social  emo 
tion.  But  the  clericals  had  triumphed,  and  an  observer 
more  anxious  than  I  to  give  a  mystical  meaning  to  acci 
dent  might  have  interpreted  the  disfiguring  ribbon  over 
Bruno's  bronze  lips  as  a  new  silencing  of  the  heretic. 

I  certainly  did  not  construe  it  so,  and,  if  my  notion 
of  serially  visiting  the  piazzas  of  Rome  was  not 
prompted  by  my  chance  glimpse  of  the  Campo  di 
Fiori,  it  was  certainly  not  relinquished  because  of  any 
mischance  in  my  meditated  vision  of  it.  I  had  merely 
reflected  that  I  could  not  hope  to  carry  out  my  scheme 
without  greater  expense  both  in  time  and  money  than 
I  could  well  afford,  for,  though  cabs  in  Rome  are  swift 
and  cheap,  yet  the  piazzas  are  many  and  widely  dis 
tributed;  and  I  finally  decided  to  indulge  myself  in 
a  novelty  of  adventure  verging  close  upon  originality. 
It  had  always  seemed  to  me  that  the  happy  strangers 
mounted  on  the  tiers  of  seats  that  rise  from  front  to 
back  on  the  motor-chariots  for  seeing  i^ew  York  and 
looking  down,  even  from  the  lowest  place,  on  the  life 
of  our  streets  had  a  peculiar,  almost  a  bird's-eye  view 
of  it  which  I  might  well  find  the  means  of  a  fresh  im 
pression.  But  I  never  had  the  courage,  for  reasons 
which  I  have  not  the  courage  to  give,  though  the  reader 
can  perhaps  imagine  them.  In  Rome  I  did  not  feel 
that  the  like  reasons  held ;  of  all  the  unknown,  I  was 
one  of  the  most  unknown ;  by  me  nobody  would  be  put 
to  the  shame  of  recognizing  an  acquaintance  on  the 

166 


fc 


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4 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

benches  of  the  like  chariot,  or  forced  to  the  cruelty 
of  cutting  him  in  my  person.  When  once  I  had  fully 
realized  this,  it  was  only  a  question  of  the  time  when 
I  should  yield  to  the  temptation  which  renewed  itself 
as  often  as  I  saw  the  stately  automobile  passing  through 
the  storied  streets,  with  its  English  legend  of  "  Touring 
Home  "  inscribed  on  the  back  of  the  rear  seat.  There 
remained  the  question  whether  I  should  go  alone  or 
whether  I  should  ask  the  countenance  of  friends  in  so 
bold  an  enterprise.  When  I  suggested  it  to  some  per 
sons  of  the  more  courageous  sex,  they  did  not  wait  to 
be  asked  to  go  with  me;  they  instantly  entreated  to 
be  allowed  to  go;  they  said  they  had  always  wished  to 
see  Rome  in  that  way ;  and  we  only  waited  to  be  chosen 
by  the  raw  and  blustery  afternoon  which  made  us  its 
own  for  the  occasion. 

It  was  the  eve  of  the  last  sad  day  of  such  shrunken 
and  faded  carnival  as  is  still  left  to  Rome,  and  there 
were  signs  of  it  in  the  straggling  groups  of  children 
in  holiday  costume,  and  in  here  and  there  a  pair  of 
young  girls  in  a  cab,  safely  masked  against  identifica 
tion  and  venting,  in  the  sense  of  wild  escape,  the  joyous 
spirits  kept  in  restraint  all  the  rest  of  the  year.  Al 
ready  in  the  Corso,  where  our  touring-car  waited  for 
us  at  the  first  corner,  a  great  cafe  was  turning  itself 
inside  out  with  a  spread  of  chairs  and  tables  over 
the  sidewalk,  which  we  found  thronged  on  our  return 
with  spectators  far  outnumbering  the  merrymakers  of 
the  carnival.  Our  car  was  not  nearly  so  packed,  and 
when  we  mounted  to  the  benches  we  found  that  the 
last  and  highest  of  them  was  left  to  the  sole  occupancy 
of  a  young  man,  well  enough  dressed  (his  yellow 
gloves  may  have  been  more  than  well  enough)  and 
well-mannered  enough,  who  continued  enigmatical  to 
the  last.  There  was  a  German  couple  and  there  were 

167 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

some  French-speaking  people ;  the  rest  of  us  were  bound 
in  the  tie  of  our  common  English.  The  agent  of  the 
enterprise  accompanied  us,  an  international  of  unde 
termined  race,  and  beside  the  chauffeur  sat  the  mid 
dle-aged,  anxious-looking  Italian  who  presently  arose 
when  we  made  our  first  stop  in  the  Piazza  Colonna 
and  harangued  us  in  three  languages — successively,  of 
course — concerning  the  Column  of  Marcus  Aurelius. 
He  did  not  use  the  megaphone  of  his  American  con 
frere;  and  from  the  shudder  which  the  first  sound  of 
his  voice  must  have  sent  through  a  less  fastidious  sub 
stance  than  mine  I  perceived  that  an  address  by  mega 
phone  I  could  not  have  borne;  to  that  extreme  of  ex 
cess  even  my  modernism  could  not  go.  As  it  was,  there 
was  an  instant  when  I  could  have  wished  to  be  on  foot, 
or  even  in  a  cab,  with  a  red  Baedeker  in  my  hand; 
and  yet,  as  the  orator  went  on,  I  had  to  own  that  he 
was  giving  me  a  better  account  of  the  column  than  I 
could  have  got  for  myself  out  of  the  guide-book.  He 
spoke  first  in  French,  with  an  Italian  accent  and  oc 
casionally  an  Italian  idiom;  then  he  spoke  in  English, 
and  then  in  a  German  which  suffered  from  his  knowl 
edge  of  English. 

He  sat  down,  looking  rather  spent  with  his  effort, 
and  on  the  way  to  our  next  stop,  at  the  Temple  of 
Neptune,  the  agent  examined  us  upon  our  necessities 
in  the  article  of  language.  He  himself  spoke  such  good 
English  that  we  could  not  do  otherwise  than  declare 
that  we  could  get  on  perfectly  with  an  address  in 
French.  The  German  pair,  perhaps  from  patriotic 
grudge,  denied  a  working  knowledge  of  the  unfriend 
ly  tongue.  The  solitary  on  the  back  seat,  being  asked 
in  his  turn,  graciously  answered,  "  Toutes  les  langues 
me  sont  egales,"  and  thereafter  we  suffered  with  the 
orator  only  through  French  and  German. 

1C8 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEKS 

The  reply  which  decided  the  matter  launched  us 
upon  yet  wider  conjecture  regarding  the  unknown: 
was  he  a  retired  courier,  a  concierge  out  of  place,  a 
professor  of  languages  on  his  holiday,  or  merely  an 
amateur  of  philological  studies?  His  declared  pro 
ficiency  was  manifested  in  unexpected  measure  as  we 
drove  away  from  the  Temple  of  Neptune  on  through 
the  narrow  street  leading  to  it.  Every  motor  has  its 
peculiar  note,  and  our  car  had  something  like  the 
scream  of  a  wild  animal  in  pain,  such  as  might  have 
justly  alarmed  a  stouter  spirit  than  that  of  the  poor 
little  cah-horse  which  we  encountered  at  the  corner  of 
this  street.  It  reared,  it  plunged;  when  our  chauffeur 
held  us  in  it  still  hacked  and  filled  so  dangerously  that 
the  mother  and  children  overflowing  the  cab  followed 
the  example  of  the  driver  in  spilling  to  the  ground. 
Then  our  good  international,  the  agent,  jumped  down 
and,  mounting  to  the  coachman's  seat,  took  the  reins 
and  urged  the  horse  forward,  while  its  driver  pulled 
it  by  the  bridle.  All  was  of  no  effect  till  the  solitary 
of  the  back  seat  rose  in  his  place  and  shouted  to  the 
frightened  creature  in  choice  American :  "  What  d'  you 
mean,  there  ?  Come  on !  Come  on,  you  fool !"  Then, 
as  if  it  had  been  an  "  impenitent  mule "  in  some 
far-distant  Far- Western  incarnation,  this  Roman  cab- 
horse  recognized  the  voice  of  authority ;  it  nerved  itself 
against  the  imaginary  danger,  and  came  steadily  for 
ward;  our  agent  regained  his  place,  and  we  moved 
shriekingly  on  to  the  next  object  of  interest.  It  was 
not  quite  the  note  blown  from  level  tubes  of  brass  in 
the  progress  of  a  conqueror,  but  we  did  not  lack  the 
cheers  of  a  disinterested  populace,  which  at  several 
points  impartially  applauded  our  orator's  French  and 
German  versions  of  his  not  always  tacit  Italian. 

Our  height  above  the  cheers  helped  preserve  us  from 

169 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEES 

the  sense  of  anything  ironical  in  them,  and  there  was 
an  advantage  in  the  outlook  from  our  elevation  which 
the  wayfarer  in  cab  or  on  foot  can  only  imagine.  No 
such  wayfarer  can  realize  the  vast  scope  and  compass 
of  our  excursion,  which  was  but  one  of  two  excursions 
made  on  alternate  afternoons  by  the  Touring-Rome 
wagons.  It  included,  perhaps  not  quite  in  the  fol 
lowing  order,  after  the  Temple  of  Neptune,  such  ob 
jects  of  prime  importance  as  the  Palazzo  Madama, 
where  Catharine  de'  Medici  once  dwelt  and  where  the 
Italian  Senate  now  holds  its  sessions;  the  Fountain 
of  Trevi,  the  Pantheon,  the  Piazza.  Navona,  the  new 
Palace  of  Justice  and  the  Cavour  monument  beyond 
the  Tiber,  the  Castle  of  Sant'  Angelo,  the  Vatican  and 
St.  Peter's,  the  Janiculum  and  the  Garibaldi  monu 
ment  on  it,  and  the  stupendous  prospect  of  the  city 
from  that  supreme  top,  the  bridge  that  Horatius  held 
in  Macaulay's  ballad,  the  island  in  the  Tiber  formed 
after  the  expulsion  of  the  Tarquins  by  the  river  sand 
and  drift  catching  on  the  seed-corn  thrown  into  the 
stream  from  the  fields  consecrated  to  Mars,  the  Temple 
of  Fortune,  the  once-supposed  House  of  Rienzi,  and 
the  former  Temple  of  Yesta ;  the  Palatine  Hill  and  the 
Aventine  Hill,  the  Circus  Maximus,  the  Colosseum, 
the  Campidoglio,  the  Theatre  of  Marcellus,  the  worst 
slum  in  Rome,  where  the  worst  boy  in  Rome,  flown 
with  Carnival,  will  try  to  board  your  passing  car ;  back 
to  Piazza  Colonna  through  Piazza  Monte  Citerio,  where 
the  Italian  House  of  Deputies  meets  in  the  plain  old 
palace  of  the  same  name. 

The  mere  mention  of  these  storied  places  will  kindle 
in  the  reader's  fancy  a  fire  which  he  will  feel  all  the 
need  of  if  ever  he  verifies  my  account  of  them  in  tour 
ing  Rome  on  so  cold  an  afternoon  as  that  of  our  ex 
cursion.  The  wind  rose  with  our  ascent  of  every  ele- 

170 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

vation,  if  it  did  not  fall  with  our  return  to  a  lower 
level;  on  the  Janiculum  it  blew  a  blizzard  in  which 
the  incongruous  ilexes  and  laurels  bowed  and  writhed, 
and  some  groups  of  almond-trees  in  their  pale  blooin 
on  a  distant  upland  mocked  us  with  a  derisive  image 
of  spring.  At  the  foot  of  the  steps  to  the  Campidoglio, 
where  some  of  our  party  dismounted  to  go  up  and  view 
the  statue  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  it  was  so  cold  that 
nothing  but  the  sense  of  a  strong  common  interest  pre 
vented  those  who  remained  from  persuading  the  chauf 
feur  to  go  on  without  the  sight-seers.  But  we  forbore, 
both  because  we  knew  we  were  then  very  near  the  end 
of  our  tour,  and  because  we  felt  it  would  have  been 
cruel  to  abandon  the  lady  who  had  got  out  of  the  car 
only  by  turning  herself  sidewise  and  could  not  have 
made  her  way  home  on  foot  without  sufferings  which 
would  justly  have  brought  us  to  shame.  Certain  idle 
particulars  will  always  cling  to  the  memory  which 
lets  so  many  ennobling  facts  slip  from  it;  and  I  find 
myself  helpless  against  the  recollection  of  this  poor 
lady's  wearing  a  thick  motoring-veil  which  no  curiosity 
could  pierce,  but  which,  when  she  lifted  it,  revealed  a 
complexion  of  heated  copper  and  a  gray  mustache  such 
as  nature  vouchsafes  to  few  women. 

The  crowd,  which  thickened  most  in  the  Piazza  di 
Venezia,  had  grown  more  and  more  carnivalesque  in 
attire  and  behavior.  We  had  been  obliged  to  avoid  the 
more  densely  peopled  streets  because,  as  our  internation 
al  explained,  if  the  car  had  slowed  at  any  point  the 
revellers  would  have  joined  our  excursion  of  their  own 
initiative  and  accompanied  us  to  the  end  in  overwhelm 
ing  numbers.  They  wellnigh  blocked  the  entrance  of 
the  Corso  when  we  got  back  to  it,  and  the  cafe  where 
we  had  agreed  to  have  tea  was  so  packed  that  our  gay 
escapade  began  to  look  rather  gloomy  in  the  retro- 

171 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

spect.  But  suddenly  a  table  was  vacated;  a  waiter 
was  caught,  in  the  vain  attempt  to  ignore  us,  and  given 
such  a  comprehensive  order  that  we  could  see  respect 
kindling  in  his  eyes,  and  before  we  could  reasonably 
have  hoped  it  he  spread  before  us  tea  and  bread  and 
butter  and  tarts  and  little  cakes,  while  scores  of  hungry 
spectators  stood  round  and  flatteringly  envied  us.  In 
this  happy  climax  our  adventure  showed  as  a  royal 
progress  throughout.  We  counted  up  the  wonders  of 
our  three  hours7  course  in  an  absolutely  novel  light; 
and  we  said  that  touring  Rome  was  a  thing  not  only 
not  to  be  despised,  but  to  be  forever  proud  of. 

For  myself,  I  decided  that  if  I  were  some  poor  hur 
ried  fellow-countryman  of  mine,  doing  Europe  in  a 
month  and  obliged  to  scamp  Rome  with  a  couple  of 
days,  I  would  not  fail  to  spend  two  of  them  in  what 
I  must  always  think  of  as  a  triumphal  chariot.  I  re 
solved  to  take  the  second  excursion,  not  the  next  day 
perhaps,  but  certainly  the  day  after  the  next,  and 
complete  the  most  compendious  impression  of  ancient, 
mediaeval,  and  modern  Rome  that  one  can  have;  but 
the  firmest  resolution  sometimes  has  not  force  to  hold 
one  to  it.  The  second  excursion  remains  for  a  second 
sojourn,  when  perhaps  I  may  be  able  to  solve  the  ques 
tion  whether  I  was  moved  by  a  fine  instinct  of  pro 
portion  or  by  mere  innate  meanness  in  giving  our  orator 
at  parting  just  two  francs  in  recognition  of  his  elo 
quence.  No  one  else,  indeed,  gave  him  anything,  and 
he  seemed  rather  surprised  by  my  tempered  munifi 
cence.  It  might  have  been  mystically  adjusted  to  the 
number  of  languages  he  used  in  addressing  us;  if 
he  had  held  to  three  languages  I  might  have  made  it 
three  francs;  but  now  I  shall  never  be  certain  till  I 
take  the  second  excursion  with  a  company  which  im 
peratively  requires  English  as  well  as  French  and  Ger- 

172 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    'AND    OTHERS 

man,  and  with  no  solitary  in  yellow  gloves  to  whom  all 
languages  are  alike. 

To  this  end  I  ought  to  have  thrown  a  copper  coin 
into  the  Fountain  of  Trevi  as  we  passed  it.  You  may 
return  to  Kome  without  doing  this,  but  it  is  well  known 
that  if  you  do  it  you  are  sure  to  come  back.  The 
Fountain  of  Trevi  is  alone  worth  coming  back  for, 
and  I  could  not  see  that  it  poured  scanter  streams 
than  it  formerly  poured  over  brimming  brinks  or  from 
the  clefts  of  the  artificial  rocks  that  spread  in  fine 
disorder  about  the  feet  of  its  sea-gods  and  sea-horses; 
but  they  who  mourn  the  old  papal  rule  accuse  the 
present  Italian  government  of  stinting  the  supply  of 
water.  To  me  there  seemed  no  stint  of  water  in  any 
of  the  fountains  of  Rome.  In  some  a  mere  wasteful 
spilth  seems  the  sole  design  of  the  artist,  as  in  the 
Fontana  Paolina  on  the  Janiculum,  where  the  cold 
wash  of  its  deluge  seemed  to  add  a  piercing  chill  to 
our  windy  afternoon.  The  other  fountains  have  each 
a  quaint  grace  or  absolute  charm  or  pleasing  absurdity, 
whether  the  waters  shower  over  groups  of  more  or  less 
irrelevant  statuary  in  their  basins  or  spout  into  the 
air  in  columns  unfurling  flags  of  spray  and  keeping 
the  pavement  about  them  green  with  tender  mould. 
The  most  sympathetic  is  the  Fountain  of  the  Triton, 
who  blows  the  water  through  his  wreathed  horn  and 
on  the  coldest  day  seems  not  to  mind  its  refluent 
splash  on  his  mossy  back;  in  fact,  he  seems  rather  to 
like  it. 

He  is  one  of  many  tritons,  rivers,  sea -gods,  and 
aqueous  allegories  similarly  employed  in  Rome  and 
similarly  indifferent  to  what  flesh  and  blood  might 
find  the  hardship  of  their  calling.  I  had  rashly  said 
to  myself  that  their  respective  fountains  needed  the 

sun  on  them  to  be  just  what  one  could  wish,  but  the 

173 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

first  gray  days  taught  me  better.  Then  the  thinly 
clouded  sky  dropped  a  softened  light  over  their  glitter 
and  sparkle  and  gave  them  a  spirituality  as  much  re 
moved  from  the  suggestion  of  physical  cold  as  any 
diaphanous  apparition  would  suggest.  Then  they  seem 
ed  rapt  into  a  finer  beauty  than  that  of  earth,  though 
I  will  not  pretend  that  they  were  alike  beautiful.  No 
fountain  can  be  quite  ugly,  but  some  fountains  can  be 
quite  stupid,  like,  for  instance,  those  which  give  its 
pretty  name  to  the  Street  of  the  Four  Fountains  and 
which  consist  of  two  extremely  plain  Virtues  and  two 
very  dull  old  Rivers,  diagonally  dozing  at  each  other 
over  their  urns  in  niches  of  the  four  converging  edi 
fices.  They  are  not  quite  so  idiotic  under  their  dis 
proportionate  foliage  as  the  conventional  Egyptian 
lions  of  the  Fountain  of  Moses,  with  manes  like  the 
wigs  of  so  many  lord  chancellors,  and  with  thin 
streams  of  water  drooling  from  the  tubes  between 
their  lips.  But  these  are  the  exceptional  fountains; 
there  are  few  sculptured  or  architectural  designs  which 
the  showering  or  spouting  water  does  not  retrieve  from 
error;  and  in  Rome  the  water  (deliciously  potable)  is 
so  abundant  that  it  has  force  to  do  almost  anything 
for  beauty,  even  where,  as  in  the  Fontana  Paolina,  it 
is  merely  a  torrent  tumbling  over  a  fagade.  It  is 
lavished  everywhere ;  in  the  Piazza  Navona  alone  there 
are  three  fountains,  but  then  the  Piazza  Navona  is 
very  long,  and  three  fountains  are  few  enough  for  it, 
even  though  one  is  that  famous  Fountain  of  Bernini, 
in  which  he  has  made  one  of  the  usual  rivers — the 
Nile,  I  believe — holding  his  hand  before  his  eyes  in 
mock  terror  of  the  ungainly  fagade  of  a  rival  archi 
tect's  church  opposite,  lest  it  shall  fall  and  crush  him. 
That,  however,  is  the  least  merit  of  the  fountain ;  and 
without  any  fountain  the  Piazza  Navona  would  be 

174 


THE    FOUNTAIN    OF    TKEVI 


OF   THE 

[   UNIVERSITY  } 

Of 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

charming;  it  is  such  a  vast  lake  of  sunshine  and  is 
so  wide  as  well  as  long,  and  is  so  mellowed  with  such 
rich  browns  and  golden  grays  in  the  noble  edifices. 

I  do  not  know,  now,  what  all  the  edifices  are,  but 
there  are  churches,  more  than  one,  and  palaces,  and 
the  reader  can  find  their  names  in  any  of  the  guide 
books.  If  I  were  buying  piazzas  in  Rome  I  should 
begin  with  the  Navona,  but  there  are  enough  to  suit 
all  purses  and  tastes.  The  fountains  would  be  thrown 
in,  I  suppose,  along  with  the  churches  and  palaces; 
but  I  really  never  inquired,  and,  in  fact,  not  having 
carried  out  my  plan  of  visiting  them  all,  I  am  in  no 
position  to  advise  intending  purchasers.  What  I  can 
say  is  that  if  you  are  in  a  hurry  to  inspect  that  kind 
of  property,  and  in  immediate  need  of  a  piazza,  you 
cannot  do  better  than  take  the  wagon  for  touring  Rome. 
In  two  days  you  can  visit  every  piazza  worth  having, 
including  the  Piazza  di  Spagna,  where  there  is  a  foun 
tain  in  the  form  of  a  marble  galley  in  which  you  can 
embark  for  any  fairyland  you  like,  through  the  Via 
del  Babuino  and  the  Piazza  del  Popolo.  Come  to 
think  of  it,  I  am  not  so  sure  but  I  would  as  soon 
have  the  Piazza  del  Popolo  as  the  Piazza  Navona.  If 
the  fountains  are  not  so  fine,  they  are  still  very  fine, 
and  the  Pincian  Hill  overtops  one  side  of  the  place, 
with  foliaged  drives  and  gardened  walks  descending 
into  it. 

Everything  of  importance  that  did  not  happen  else 
where  in  Rome  seems  to  have  happened  in  the  Piazza 
del  Popolo,  and  I  may  name  as  a  few  of  its  attractions 
for  investors  the  facts  that  it  was  here  Sulla's  funeral 
pyre  was  kindled;  that  Nero  was  buried  on  the  left 
side  of  it,  and  out  of  his  tomb  grew  a  huge  walnut- 
tree,  the  haunt  of  demoniacal  crows  till  the  Madonna 
appeared  to  Paschal  II.  and  bade  him  cut  it  down ;  that 

175 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

the  arch-heretic  Luther  sojourned  in  the  Augustinian 
convent  here  while  in  Rome;  that  the  dignitaries  of 
Church  and  State  received  Christina  of  Sweden  here 
when,  after  her  conversion,  she  visited  the  city;  that 
Lucrezia  Borgia  celebrated  her  betrothal  in  one  of  the 
churches;  that  it  used  to  be  a  favorite  place  for  ex 
ecuting  brigands,  whose  wives  then  became  artists' 
models,  and  whose  sons,  if  they  were  like  Cardinal 
Antonelli,  became  princes  of  the  Church.  So  I  learn 
from  Hare  in  his  Walks  in  Rome,  and,  if  he  enables 
me  to  boast  the  rivalry  of  the  Piazza  Navona  in  no 
such  array  of  merits,  still  I  will  not  deny  my  love  for 
it.  Certainly  it  was  not  a  favorite  place  for  executing 
brigands,  but  the  miracle  which  saved  St.  Agnes  from 
cruel  shame  was  wrought  in  the  vaulted  chambers  un 
der  the  church  of  her  name  there,  and  that  is  something 
beyond  all  the  wonders  of  the  Piazza  del  Popolo  for 
its  pathos  arid  for  its  poetry.  But,  if  the  Piazza 
Navona  had  no  other  claim  on  me,  I  should  find  a 
peculiar  pleasure  in  the  old  custom  of  stopping  the 
escapes  from  its  fountains  and  flooding  with  water  the 
place  I  saw  flooded  with  sun,  for  the  patricians  to  wade 
and  drive  about  in  during  the  very  hot  weather  and 
eat  ices  and  drink  coffee,  while  the  plebeians  looked 
sumptuously  down  on  them  from  the  galleries  built 
around  the  lake. 


XI 

IN  AND  ABOUT  THE  VATICAN 

It  would  be  a  very  bold  or  very  incompetent  ob 
server  of  the  Roman  situation  who  should  venture  upon 
a  decided  opinion  of  the  relations  of  the  monarchy  and 
the  papacy.  You  hear  it  said  with  intimations  of 

176 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

special  authority  in  the  matter,  that  both  king  and 
pope  are  well  content  with  the  situation,  and  it  is  clear 
ly  explained  how  and  why  they  are  so;  but  I  did  not 
understand  how  or  why  at  the  moment  of  the  explana 
tion,  or  else  I  have  now  forgotten  whatever  was  clear 
in  it.  I  believe,  however,  it  was  to  the  effect  that  the 
pope  willingly  remained  self-prisoned  in  the  Vatican 
because,  if  he  came  out,  he  might  not  only  invalidate 
a  future  claim  upon  the  sovereign  dignity  which  the 
Italian  occupation  had  invaded,  but  he  might  incur 
risks  from  the  more  unfriendly  extremists  which  would 
at  least  be  very  offensive.  On  his  part,  it  was  said 
that  the  king  used  the  embarrassment  occasioned  by 
the  pope's  attitude  as  his  own  defence  against  the  anti- 
Clericals,  who  otherwise  would  have  urged  him  to  far 
more  hostile  measures  with  the  Church.  The  king 
and  the  pope  were  therefore  not  very  real  enemies,  it 
was  said  by  those  who  tried  to  believe  themselves  bet 
ter  informed  than  others. 

To  the  passing  or  tarrying  stranger  the  situation  does 
not  offer  many  dramatic  aspects.  When  you  are  going 
to  St.  Peter's,  if  you  will  look  up  at  the  plain  wall  of 
the  Vatican  palace  you  will  see  two  windows  with  their 
shutters  open,  and  these  are  the  windows  of  the  rooms 
where  Pius  X.  lives,  a  voluntary  captive;  the  closed 
blinds  are  those  of  the  rooms  where  Leo  XIII.  died, 
a  voluntary  captive.  Whatever  we  think  of  the  wisdom 
or  the  reason  of  the  papal  protest  against  the  occupa 
tion  of  the  States  of  the  Church  by  the  Italian  people, 
these  windows  have  their  pathos.  The  pope  immures 
himself  in  the  Vatican  and  takes  his  walks  in  the 
Vatican  gardens,  whose  beauty  I  could  have  envied 
him,  if  he  had  not  been  a  prisoner,  when  I  caught  a 
glimpse  of  them  one  morning,  with  the  high  walls  of 

their  privet  and  laurel  alleys  blackening  in  the  sun. 
12  177 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEKS 

But  otherwise  the  severest  Protestant  could  not  cher 
ish  so  unkind  a  feeling  toward  the  gentle  priest  whom 
all  men  speak  well  of  for  his  piety  and  humility.  It 
is  a  touching  fact  of  his  private  life  that  his  three 
maiden  sisters,  who  wish  to  be  as  near  him  as  they  can, 
have  their  simple  lodging  over  a  shop  for  the  sale  of 
holy  images  in  a  street  opening  into  the  Piazza  of  St. 
Peter's.  We  all  know  that  they  are  of  a  Venetian  fam 
ily  neither  rich  nor  great ;  their  pride  and  joy  is  solely 
in  him,  as  it  well  might  he,  and  it  is  said  that  when 
they  come  to  hear  him  in  some  high  function  at  the 
Sistine  Chapel  their  rapture  of  affection  and  devotion 
is  as  evident  as  it  is  sweet  and  touching. 

Their  relation  to  him  is  the  supremely  poetic  fact 
of  a  situation  which  even  one  who  knows  of  it  merely 
by  hearsay  cannot  refuse  to  feel.  The  tragical  effect 
of  the  situation  is  in  the  straining  and  sundering  of 
family  ties  among  those  who  take  one  side  or  the 
other  in  the  difference  of  the  monarchy  and  papacy. 
I  do  not  know  how  equally  Roman  society,  in  the 
(large  or  the  small  sense,  is  divided  into  the  Black  of 
the  Papists  and  the  White  of  the  Monarchists  (for  the 
mediaeval  names  of  Neri  and  Bianchi  are  revived  in 
the  modern  differences),  but  one  cannot  help  hearing 
of  instances  in  which  their  political  and  religious  opin 
ions  part  fathers  and  sons  and  mothers  and  daughters. 
These  are  promptly  noted  to  the  least-inquiring  for 
eigner,  and  his  imagination  is  kindled  by  the  attribu 
tion  of  like  variances  to  the  members  of  the  reign 
ing  family,  who  are  reported  respectively  blacker  and 
whiter  if  they  are  not  as  positively  black  or  white  as 
the  nobles.  Some  of  these  are  said  to  meet  one  an 
other  only  in  secret  across  the  gulf  that  divides  them 
openly;  but  how  far  the  cleavage  may  descend  among 
other  classes  I  cannot  venture  to  conjecture;  I  can 

178 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

only  testify  to  some  expressions  of  priest-hatred  which 
might  have  shocked  a  hardier  heretical  substance  than 
mine. 

One  Sunday  we  went  to  the  wonderful  old  Church 
of  San  Clemente,  which  is  built  three  deep  into  the 
earth  or  high  into  the  air,  one  story  above  or  below 
the  other,  in  the  three  successive  periods  of  imperial, 
mediaeval,  and  modern  Rome.  It  was  the  day  when 
the  church  is  illuminated,  and  the  visitors  come  with 
their  Baedekers  and  Hares  and  Murrays  to  identify 
its  antiquities  of  architecture  and  fresco;  it  was  full 
of  people,  and,  if  I  fancied  an  unusual  proportion 
of  English-speaking  converts  among  them,  that  might 
well  have  been,  since  the  adjoining  convent  belongs 
to  the  Irish  Dominicans.  But  I  carried  with  me 
through  all  the  historic  and  artistic  interest  of  the 
place  the  sensation  left  by  two  inscriptions  daubed 
in  black  on  the  white  convent  wall  next  the  church. 
One  of  these  read:  <f  W.  la  Repubblica"  (Long 
live  the  Republic),  and  the  other:  ff M.  ai  Preti" 
(Death  to  the  Priests).  Nfo  attempt  had  been  made 
to  efface  them,  and  as  they  expressed  an  equal  hatred 
for  the  monarchy  and  the  papacy,  neither  laity  nor 
clergy  may  have  felt  obliged  to  interfere.  Perhaps, 
however,  it  was  rightly  inferred  that  the  ferocity  of 
one  inscription  might  be  best  left  to  counteract  the 
influence  of  the  other.  I  know  that  with  regard  to 
the  priests  you  experience  some  such  effect  from  the 
atrocious  attacks  in  the  chief  satirical  paper  of  Rome. 
The  name  of  this  paper  was  given  me,  with  a  depreca 
tion  not  unmixed  with  recognition  of  its  cleverness, 
by  an  Italian  friend  whom  I  was  making  my  creditor 
for  some  knowledge  of  Roman  journalism;  and  the 
sole  copy  of  it  which  I  bought  was  handed  to  me 
with  a  sort  of  smiling  abhorrence  by  the  kindly  old 

179 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

kiosk  woman  whom  I  liked  best  to  buy  my  daily  pa 
pers  of.  When  I  came  to  look  it  through,  I  made  more 
and  more  haste,  for  its  satire  of  the  priests  was  of  an 
indecency  so  rank  that  it  seemed  to  offend  the  nose  as 
well  as  the  eye.  To  turn  from  the  paper  was  easy,  but 
from  the  fact  of  its  popularity  a  painful  impression 
remained.  It  was  not  a  question  of  whether  the  priests 
were  so  bad  as  all  that,  but  whether  its  many  readers 
believed  them  so,  or  believed  them  bad  short  of  it,  in 
the  kind  of  wickedness  they  were  accused  of. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  constant  rancor  between 
the  Clericals  and  the  Eadicals  in  their  different  phases 
throughout  Italy.  There  can  be  almost  no  doubt  that 
the  Eadicals  will  have  their  way  increasingly,  and  that 
if,  for  instance,  the  catechism  is  kept  in  the  public 
schools  this  year,  it  will  be  cast  out  some  other  year 
not  far  hence.  Much,  of  course,  depends  upon  whether 
the  status  can  maintain  itself.  It  is,  like  the  status 
everywhere  and  always,  very  anomalous;  but  it  is  dif 
ficult  to  imagine  either  the  monarchy  or  the  papacy 
yielding  at  any  point.  Apparently  the  State  is  the 
more  self-assertive  of  the  two,  but  this  is  through  the 
patriotism  which  is  the  political  life  of  the  people.  It 
must  always  be  remembered  that  when  the  Italians  en 
tered  Rome  and  made  it  the  capital  of  their  kingdom 
they  did  not  drive  out  the  French  troops,  which  had 
already  been  withdrawn;  they  drove  out  the  papal 
troops,  the  picturesque  and  inefficient  foreign  volunteers 
who  remained  behind.  Every  memorial  of  that  event, 
therefore,  is  a  blow  at  the  Church,  so  far  as  the  Church 
is  identified  with  the  lost  temporal  power.  One  of 
the  chief  avenues  is  named  Twenty-second  September 
Street  because  the  national  troops  entered  Rome  on 
that  date;  the  tablets  on  the  Porta  Pia  where  they  en 
tered,  the  monument  on  the  Pincio  to  the  Cairoli 

180 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

brothers,  who  died  for  Italy;  the  statues  of  Gari 
baldi,  of  Cavour,  of  Victor  Emmanuel  everywhere 
painfully  remind  the  papacy  of  its  lost  sovereignty. 
But  the  national  feeling  has  gone  in  its  expression  be 
yond  and  behind  the  patriotic  occupation  of  Rome; 
and  no  one  who  suffered  conspicuously,  at  any  time 
in  the  past,  for  freedom  of  thought  through  the  piety 
of  the  fallen  power  is  suffered  to  be  forgotten.  On 
its  side  the  Church  enters  its  perpetual  protest  in  the 
self  -  imprisonment  of  the  pope ;  and  here  and  there, 
according  to  its  opportunity,  it  makes  record  of  what 
it  has  suffered  from  the  State.  For  instance,  at  St. 
John  Lateran,  which  theoretically  forms  part  of  the 
Leonine  City  of  the  Popes  and  is  therefore  extraterri 
torial  to  Italy,  a  stretch  of  wall  is  suffered  to  remain 
scarred  by  the  cannon-shot  which  the  monarchy  fired 
when  it  took  Home  from  the  papacy. 

Doubtless  there  are  other  monuments  of  the  kind, 
but  their  enumeration  would  not  throw  greater  light 
on  a  situation  which  endures  with  no  apparent  promise 
of  change.  The  patience  of  the  Church  is  infinite;  it 
lives  and  it  outlives.  Remembering  that  Arianism  was 
older  than  Protestantism  when  Catholicism  finally  sur 
vived  it,  we  must  not  be  surprised  if  the  Roman  Church 
shall  hold  out  against  the  Italian  State  not  merely 
decades,  but  centuries.  In  the  meanwhile  to  its  chil 
dren  from  other  lands  it  means  Rome  above  all  the 
other  Romes;  and  on  us,  its  step-children  of  different 
faiths  or  unfaiths,  its  prison-house — if  we  choose  so 
to  think  of  the  Vatican — has  a  supreme  claim,  if  we 
love  the  sculpture  of  pagan  Rome  or  the  painting  of 
Christian  Rome. 

We  swarm  to  its  galleries  in  every  variety  of  nation 
ality,  with  guide-books  in  every  tongue,  and  we  are 
very  queer,  for  the  most  part,  to  any  one  of  our  num- 

181 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

ber  who  can  sufficiently  exteriorate  himself  to  get  the 
rest  of  us  in  perspective.  It  is  probably  well  that  most 
of  us  do  not  stagger  under  any  great  knowledge  of  the 
crushing  history  of  the  place,  which  has  been  the  scene 
of  the  most  terrible  experiences  of  the  race,  the  most 
touching,  the  most  august.  Provisionally  ignorant,  at 
least,  we  begin  to  appear  at  the  earliest  practicable 
hour  before  the  outermost  stairway  of  the  Vatican, 
and,  while  the  Swiss  Guards  still  have  on  their  long, 
blue  cloaks  to  keep  their  black  and  yellow  legs  warm, 
mount  to  the  Sistine  Chapel.  Here  we  help  instruct 
one  another,  as  we  stand  about  or  sit  about  in  twos 
and  threes  or  larger  groups,  reading  aloud  from  our 
polyglot  Baedekers  while  we  join  in  identifying  the 
different  facts.  Here,  stupendously  familiar,  whether 
we  have  seen  it  before  or  not,  is  Michelangelo's  giant 
fresco  of  the  Judgment,  as  prodigious  as  we  imagined 
or  remembered  it;  here  are  his  mighty  Prophets  and 
his  mighty  Sibyls ;  and  here  below  them,  in  incompar 
ably  greater  charm,  are  the  frescos  of  Botticelli,  with 
the  grace  of  his  Primavera  playing  through  them  all 
like  a  strain  of  music  and  taking  the  soul  with  joy. 

It  is  the  same  crowd  in  the  Kaphael  Stanze,  but 
rather  silenter,  for  by  now  we  have  taught  ourselves 
enough  from  our  Baedekers  at  least  to  read  them  under 
our  breaths,  and  we  talk  low  before  the  frescos  and  the 
canvases.  Some  of  us  are  even  mute  in  the  presence 
of  the  School  of  Athens,  whatever  reserves  we  may 
utter  concerning  the  Transfiguration.  If  we  are  honest, 
we  more  or  less  own  what  our  impressions  really  are 
from  those  other  famous  works,  concerning  which  our 
impressions  are  otherwise  altogether  and  inexpressibly 
unimportant;  it  is  a  question  of  ethics  and  not  aes 
thetics,  as  most  of  our  simple-hearted  company  sup 
pose  it  to  be ;  and,  if  we  are  dishonest,  we  pretend  to 

182 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

have  felt  and  thought  things  at  first-hand  from  them 
which  we  have  learned  at  second-hand  from  our  read 
ing.  I  will  confess,  for  my  small  part,  that  I  had  more 
pleasure  in  the  coloring  and  feeling  of  some  of  the  older 
canvases  and  in  here  and  there  a  Titian  than  in  all  the 
Eaphaels  in  the  Stanze  of  his  name. 

I  was  not  knowing  his  works  for  the  first  time ;  no 
one  perhaps  does  that,  such  is  the  multiplicity  of  the 
copies  of  them;  and  I  vividly  remembered  them  from 
my  acquaintance  with  the  originals  four  decades  be 
fore,  as  I  had  remembered  the  Michelangelos ;  but  in 
their  presence  and  in  the  presence  of  so  many  other 
masterpieces  in  the  different  rooms,  with  their  horrible 
miracles  and  atrocious  martyrdoms,  I  realized  as  for 
the  first  time  what  a  bloody  religion  ours  was.  It  was 
such  relief,  such  rest,  to  go  from  those  broilings  and  be 
headings  and  crucifixions  and  flayings  and  stabbings 
into  the  long,  tranquil  aisles  of  the  museum  where 
the  marble  men  and  women,  created  for  earthly  im 
mortality  by  Greek  art,  welcomed  me  to  their  serenity 
and  sanity.  The  earlier  gods  might  have  been  the 
devils  which  the  early  Christians  fancied  them,  but 
they  did  not  look  it ;  they  did  not  look  as  if  it  was  they 
that  had  loosed  the  terrors  upon  mankind  out  of  which 
the  true  faith  has  but  barely  struggled  at  last,  now 
when  its  relaxing  grasp  seems  slipping  from  the  hu 
man  mind.  I  remembered  those  peaceful  pagans  so 
perfectly  that  I  could  have  gone  confidently  to  this  or 
that  and  hailed  him  friend;  and  though  I  might  not 
have  liked  to  claim  the  acquaintance  of  all  of  them 
in  the  flesh,  in  the  marble  I  fled  to  it  as  refuge  from 
the  cruel  visions  of  Christian  art.  If  this  is  perhaps 
saying  too  much,  I  wish  also  to  hedge  from  the  whole 
sale  censure  of  my  fellow-sight-seers  which  I  may  have 
seemed  to  imply.  They  did  not  prevail  so  clutteringly 

183 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

in  the  sculpture  galleries  as  in  the  Sistine  Chapel  and 
the  Stanze.  One  could  have  the  statues  as  much  to 
one's  self  as  one  liked;  there  were  courts  with  mur 
muring  fountains  in  them;  and  there  was  a  view  of 
Rome  from  a  certain  window,  where  no  fellow-tourist 
intruded  between  one  and  the  innumerable  roofs  and 
domes  and  towers,  and  the  heights  beyond  whose  snows 
there  was  nothing  but  blue  sky.  It  was  a  beautiful 
morning,  with  a  Bun  mild  as  English  summer,  which 
did  not  prevent  the  afternoon  from  turning  cold  with 
wind  and  raining  and  hailing  and  snowing.  This  in 
turn  did  not  keep  off  a  fine  red  sunset,  with  an  evening 
star  of  glittering  silver  that  brightened  as  the  sunset 
faded.  At  Rome  the  weather  can  be  of  as  many  minds 
in  March  as  in  April  at  New  York. 

But  through  all  one's  remembrance  of  the  Roman 
winter  a  sentiment  of  spring  plays  enchantingly,  like 
that  grace  of  Botticelli's  Primavera  in  his  Sistine 
frescos.  It  is  not  a  sentiment  of  summer,  though  it 
is  sometimes  a  summer  warmth  which  you  feel,  and 
except  in  the  steam-heated  hotels  it  does  not  penetrate 
to  the  interiors.  In  the  galleries  and  the  churches  you 
must  blow  your  nails  if  you  wish  to  thaw  your  fingers, 
but,  if  you  go  out-of-doors,  there  is  a  radiant  imitation 
of  May  awaiting  you.  She  takes  you  by  your  thick 
glove  and  leads  you  in  your  fur-lined  overcoat  through 
sullen  streets  that  open  upon  sunny  squares,  with  foun 
tains  streaming  into  the  crystal  air,  and  makes  you  own 
that  this  is  the  Italian  winter  as  advertised — that  is,  if 
you  are  a  wanderer  and  a  stranger;  if  you  are  an 
Italian  and  at  home  you  keep  in  the  out-door  warmth, 
but  shun  the  sun,  and  in-doors  you  wrap  up  more  thick 
ly  than  ever,  or  you  go  to  bed  if  you  have  a  more 
luxurious  prejudice  against  shivering.  If  you  are  a 
beggar,  as  you  very  well  may  be  in  Rome,  you  impart 

184 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

your  personal  heat  to  a  specific  curbstone  or  the  spot 
which  you  select  as  being  most  in  the  path  of  charity, 
and  cling  to  it  from  dawn  till  dark.  Or  you  acquire 
somehow  the  rights  of  a  chair  just  within  the  padded 
curtain  of  a  church,  and  do  not  leave  it  till  the  hour  for 
closing.  The  Eoman  beggars  are  of  all  claims  upon 
pity,  but  preferably  I  should  say  they  were  blind,  and 
some  of  these  are  quite  young  girls,  and  mostly  rather 
cheerful.  But  the  very  gayest  beggar  I  remember  was 
a  legless  man  at  the  gate  of  the  Vatican  Museum ;  the 
saddest  was  a  sullen  dwarf  on  the  way  to  this  cripple, 
whose  gloom  a  donative  even  of  twenty-five  centessimi 
did  not  suffice  to  abate. 


XII 
SUPERFICIAL   OBSERVATIONS    AND    CONJECTURES 

It  had  seemed  to  me  that  in  the  afternoons  of  the 
old  papal  times,  so  dear  to  foreigners  who  never  knew 
them,  I  used  to  see  a  series  of  patrician  ladies  driving  / 
round  and  round  on  the  Pincio,  reclining  in  their 
landaus  and  shielding  their  complexions  from  the  No 
vember  suns  of  the  year  1864  with  the  fringed  parasols 
of  the  period.  In  the  doubt  which  attends  all  recol 
lections  of  the  past,  after  age  renders  us  uncertain  of 
the  present,  I  hastened  on  my  second  Sunday  at  Rome 
in  February,  1908,  to  enjoy  this  vision,  if  possible.  I 
found  the  Pincio  unexpectedly  near ;  I  found  the  sun 
shine;  I  found  the  familiar  winter  warmth  which  in 
Southern  climates  is  so  unlike  the  summer  warmth  in 
ours;  but  the  drive  which  I  had  remembered  as  a 
long  ellipse  had  narrowed  to  a  little  circle,  where  one 

could  not  have  driven  round  faster  than  a  slow  trot 

185 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

without  danger  of  vertigo.  I  did  not  find  that  series 
of  apparent  principessas  or  imaginable  marchesas  lean 
ing  at  their  lovely  lengths  in  their  landaus.  I  found  in 
overwhelming  majority  the  numbered  victorias,  which 
pass  for  cabs  in  Rome,  full  of  decent  tourists,  together 
with  a  great  variety  of  people  on  foot,  but  not  much 
fashion  and  no  swells  that  my  snobbish  soul  could  be 
sure  of.  There  was,  indeed,  one  fine  moment  when, 
at  a  retired  point  of  the  drive,  I  saw  two  private  car 
riages  drawn  up  side  by  side  in  their  encounter,  with 
two  stout  old  ladies,  whom  I  decided  to  be  dowager 
countesses  at  the  least,  partially  projected  from  their 
opposing  windows  and  lost  in  a  delightful  exchange, 
as  I  hoped,  of  scandal.  But  the  only  other  impressive 
personality  was  that  of  an  elderly,  obviously  Ameri 
can  gentleman,  in  the  solitary  silk  hat  and  long  frock- 
coat  of  the  scene.  There  were  other  Americans,  but 
none  so  formal;  the  English  were  in  all  degrees  of 
informality  down  to  tan  shoes  and  at  least  one  travel 
ling-cap.  The  women's  dress,  whether  they  were  on 
foot  or  in  cabs,  was  not  striking,  though  more  than 
half  of  them  were  foreigners  and  could  easily  have  af 
forded  to  outdress  the  Italians,  especially  the  work 
people,  though  these  were  there  in  their  best. 

There  was  a  band-stand  in  the  space  first  reached 
by  the  promenaders,  and  there  ought  clearly  to  have 
been  a  band,  but  I  was  convinced  that  there  was  to 
be  none  by  a  brief  colloquy  between  one  of  the  cab- 
drivers  (doubtless  goaded  to  it  by  his  fair  freight)  and 
the  gentlest  of  Roman  policemen,  whose  response  was 
given  in  accents  of  hopeful  compassion: 

CABMAN:  "  M usica,  no?"  (Xo  music?) 

POLICEMAN:  ff  Forse  V  avremo  oramai"  (Perhaps 
we  shall  have  it  presently.) 

We  did  not  have  it  at  all  that  Sunday,  possibly  be- 

186 


PIAZZA    DEL    POPOLO    FROM    THE    PINCIAN    HILL 


OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

Of 
\Ll  FOR  Nil 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

cause  it  was  the  day  after  the  assassination  of  the  King 
of  Portugal,  and  the  flags  were  at  half-mast  every 
where.  So  we  went,  such  of  us  as  liked,  to  the  para 
pet  overlooking  the  Piazza  del  Popolo,  and  command 
ing  one  of  those  prospects  of  Rome  which  are  equally 
incomparable  from  every  elevation.  I,  for  my  part, 
made  the  dizzying  circuit  of  the  brief  drive  on  foot  in 
the  dark  shadows  of  the  roofing  ilexes  (if  they  are 
ilexes),  and  then  strolled  back  and  forth  on  the  paths 
set  thick  with  plinths  bearing  the  heads  of  the  innu 
merable  national  great — the  poets,  historians,  artists, 
scientists,  politicians,  heroes — from  the  ancient  Roman 
to  the  modern  Italian  times.  I  particularly  looked  up 
the  poets  of  the  last  hundred  years,  because  I  had 
written  about  them  in  one  of  my  many  forgotten  books, 
till  I  fancied  a  growing  consciousness  in  them  at  this 
encounter  with  an  admirer;  they,  at  least,  seemed  to 
remember  my  book.  Then  I  went  off  to  the  cafe  over 
looking  them  in  their  different  alleys,  and  had  tea 
next  a  man  who  was  taking  lemon  instead  of  milk 
in  his.  Here  I  was  beset  with  an  impassioned  longing 
to  know  whether  he  was  a  Russian  or  American,  since 
the  English  always  take  milk  in  their  tea,  but  I  could 
not  ask,  and  when  I  had  suffered  my  question  as  long 
as  I  could  in  his  presence  I  escaped  from  it,  if  you  can 
call  it  escaping,  to  the  more  poignant  question  of  what 
it  would  be  like  to  come,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  to 
the  Pincio,  in  the  life-long  voluntary  exile  of  some 
Americans  I  knew,  who  meant  to  spend  the  rest  of 
their  years  under  the  spell  of  Rome.  I  thought,  upon 
the  whole,  that  it  would  be  a  dull,  sad  fate,  for  some 
how  we  seem  born  in  a  certain  country  in  order  to 
die  in  it,  and  I  went  home,  to  come  again  other  Sun 
days  to  the  Pincio,  but  not  all  the  Sundays  I  promised 
myself. 

187 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

On  one  of  these  Sundays  I  found  Eoman  boys  play 
ing  an  inscrutable  game  among  the  busts  of  their  storied 
compatriots,  a  sort  of  "  I  spy "  or  "  Hide  and  go 
whoop,"  counting  who  should  be  "It"  in  an  Italian 
version  of  "  Oneary,  ory,  ickory,  an,"  and  then  scat 
tering  in  every  direction  behind  the  plinths  and  bushes. 
They  were  not  more  molestive  than  boys  always  are 
in  a  world  which  ought  to  be  left  entirely  to  old  peo- 
.ple,  and  I  could  not  see  that  they  did  any  harm.  But 
somebody  must  have  done  harm,  for  not  only  was  a 
bust  here  and  there  scribbled  over  in  pencil,  but  the 
bust  of  Machiavelli  had  its  nose  freshly  broken  off 
in  a  jagged  fracture  that  was  very  hurting  to  look  at. 
This  may  have  been  done  by  some  mistaken  moralist, 
who  saw  in  the  old  republican  adviser  of  princes  that 
enemy  of  mankind  which  he  was  once  reputed  to  be. 
At  any  rate,  I  will  not  attribute  the  mutilation  to  the 
boys  of  Rome,  whom  I  saw  at  other  times  foregoing 
so  many  opportunities  of  mischief  in  the  Villa  Bor- 
ghese.  One  of  them  even  refused  money  from  me  there 
when  I  misunderstood  his  application  for  matches  and 
offered  him  some  coppers.  He  put  my  tip  aside  with 
a  dignified  wave  of  his  hand  and  a  proud  backward 
step;  and,  indeed,  I  ought  to  have  seen  from  the  flat, 
broad  cap  he  wore  that  he  was  a  school-boy  of  civil 
condition.  The  Romans  are  not  nearly  so  dramatic 
as  the  Neapolitans  or  Venetians  or  even  as  the  Tus 
cans;  but  once  in  the  same  pleasance  I  saw  a  con 
troversy  between  school-boys  which  was  carried  on  with 
an  animation  full  of  beauty  and  finish.  They  argued 
back  and  forth,  not  violently,  but  vividly,  and  one 
whom  I  admired  most  enforced  his  reasons  with  charm 
ing  gesticulations,  whirling  from  his  opponents  with 
quick  turns  of  his  body  and  many  a  renunciatory  re 
tirement,  and  then  facing  about  and  advancing  again 

188 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

upon  the  unconvinced.  I  decided  that  his  admirable 
drama  had  been  studied  from  the  histrionics  of  his 
mother  in  domestic  scenes;  and,  if  I  had  been  one  of 
those  other  boys,  I  should  have  come  over  to  his  side 
instantly. 

The  Roman  manners  vary  from  Roman  to  Roman, 
just  as  our  own  manners,  if  we  had  any,  would  vary 
from  New-Yorker  to  New-Yorker.  Zola  thinks  the 
whole  population  is  more  or  less  spoiled  with  the  con 
ceit  of  Rome's  ancient  greatness,  and  shows  it.  One 
could  hardly  blame  them  if  this  were  so ;  but  I  did  not 
see  any  strong  proof  of  it,  though  I  could  have  im 
agined  it  on  occasion.  I  should  say  rather  that  they 
had  a  republican  simplicity  of  manner,  and  I  liked  this 
better  in  the  shop  people  and  work  people  than  the 
civility  overflowing  into  servility  which  one  finds 
among  the  like  folk,  for  instance,  in  England.  I 
heard  complaints  from  foreigners  that  the  old-time 
deference  of  the  lower  classes  was  gone,  but  I  did 
not  miss  it.  Once  in  a  cafe,  indeed,  the  waiter  spoke 
to  me  in  Voi  (you)  instead  of  Lei  (lordship),  but  the 
Neapolitans  often  do  this,  and  I  took  it  for  a  friendly 
effort  to  put  me  at  my  ease  in  a  strange  tongue  with 
a  more  accustomed  form.  We  were  trying  to  come 
together  on  the  kind  of  tea  I  wanted,  but  we  failed, 
if  I  wanted  it  strong,  for  I  got  it  very  weak  and  tepid. 
I  thought  another  day  that  it  would  be  stronger  if  I 
could  get  it  brought  hotter,  but  it  was  not,  and  so  I 
went  no  more  to  a  place  where  I  was  liable  to  be  called 
You  instead  of  Lordship  and  still  get  weak  tea.  I 
think  this  was  a  mistake  of  mine  and  a  loss,  for  at 
that  cafe  I  saw  some  old-fashioned  Italian  types  drink 
ing  their  black  coffee  at  afternoon  tea-time  out  of 
tumblers,  and  others  calling  for  pen  and  ink  and 
writing  letters,  and  ladies  sweetly  asking  for  news- 

189 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

papers  and  reading  them  there;  and  I  ought  to  have 
continued  coming  to  study  them. 

As  to  my  conjectures  of  republican  quality  in  the 
Romans,  I  had  explicit  confirmation  from  a  very  in 
telligent  Italian  who  said  of  the  anomalous  social  and 
political  situation  in  Rome :  "  We  Italians  are  nat 
urally  republicans,  and,  if  it  were  a  question  of  any 
other  reigning  family,  we  should  have  the  republic. 
But  we  feel  that  we  owe  everything,  the  very  existence 
of  the  nation,  to  the  house  of  Savoy,  and  we  are 
loyal  to  it  in  our  gratitude.  Especially  we  are  true 
to  the  present  king."  It  is  known,  of  course,  that 
Menotti  Garibaldi  continues  the  republican  that  his 
father  always  was,  but  I  heard  of  his  saying  that, 
if  a  republic  were  established,  Victor  Emmanuel  III. 
would  be  overwhelmingly  chosen  the  first  president. 
It  is  the  Socialists  who  hold  off  unrelentingly  from 
the  monarchy,  and  not  the  republicans,  as  they  can 
be  differenced  from  them.  One  of  the  well-known 
Roman  anomalies  is  that  some  members  of  the  oldest 
families  are  or  have  been  Socialists ;  and  such  a  noble 
was  reproached  because  he  would  not  go  to  thank  the 
king  in  recognition  of  some  signal  proof  of  his  public 
spirit  and  unselfish  patriotism.  He  owned  the  gen 
erosity  of  the  king's  behavior  and  his  claim  upon  pop 
ular  acknowledgment,  but  he  said  that  he  had  taught 
the  young  men  of  his  party  the  duty  of  ignoring  the 
monarchy,  and  he  could  not  go  counter  to  the  doctrine 
he  had  preached. 

If  I  venture  to  speak  now  of  a  very  extraordinary 
trait  of  the  municipal  situation  at  Rome,  it  must  be 
without  the  least  pretence  to  authority  or  to  more  than 
such  superficial  knowledge  as  the  most  incurious  visitor 
to  Rome  can  hardly  help  having.  In  the  capital  of 

Christendom,  where  the  head  of  the  Church  dwells  in 

190 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

a  tradition  of  supremacy  hardly  less  Italian  than  Chris 
tian,  the  syndic,  or  mayor,  is  a.  Jew,  and  not  merely  ) 
a  Jew,  but  an  alien  Jew,  English  by  birth  and  educa 
tion,  a  Londoner  and  an  Oxford  man.  More  yet.  he 
is  a  Freemason,  which  in  Italy  means  things  anathema 
to  the  Church,  and  he  is  a  very  prominent  Freemason. 
With  reference  to  the  State,  his  official  existence,  though 
not  inimical,  is  through  the  fusion  of  the  political 
parties  which  elected  him  hardly  less  anomalous.  This 
combination  overthrew  the  late  Clerical  city  govern 
ment,  and  it  included  Liberals,  Republicans,  Social 
ists,  and  all  the  other  anti-Clericals.  Whatever  liberal 
ism  or  republicanism  means,  socialism  cannot  mean 
less  than  the  economic  solution  of  regality  and  aris 
tocracy  in  Europe,  and  in  Italy  as  elsewhere.  It  does 
not  mean  the  old-fashioned  revolution ;  it  means  simply 
the  effacement  of  all  social  differences  by  equal  in 
dustrial  obligations.  So  far  as  the  Socialists  can  char 
acterize  it,  therefore,  the  actual  municipal  government 
of  Rome  is  as  antimonarchical  as  it  is  antipapal.  But 
the  syndic  of  Rome  is  a  man  of  education,  of  culture, 
of  intelligence,  and  he  is  evidently  a  man  of  consum 
mate  tact.  He  has  known  how  to  reconcile  the  warring 
elements,  which  made  peace  in  his  election,  to  one  an 
other  and  to  their  outside  antagonists,  to  the  Church 
and  to  the  State,  as  well  as  to  himself,  in  the  course  he 
holds  over  a  very  rugged  way.  His  opportunities  of 
downfall  are  pretty  constant,  it  will  be  seen,  when  it 
is  explained  that  if  a  measure  with  which  he  is  identi 
fied  fails  in  the  city  council  it  becomes  his  duty  to 
resign,  like  the  prime-minister  of  England  in  the  like 
case  with  Parliament.  But  Mr.  Nathan,  who  is  as  alien 
in  his  name  as  in  his  race  and  religion,  and  is  known 
orally  to  the  Romans  as  Signor  Nahtahn,  has  not  yet 
been  obliged  to  resign.  He  has  felt  his  way  through 

191 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

every  difficulty,  and  has  not  yet  been  identified  with 
any  fatally  compromising  measure.  In  such  an  ex 
tremely  embarrassing  predicament  as  that  created  by 
the  conflict  between  the  labor  unions  and  the  police 
early  in  April,  and  eventuating  in  the  two  days'  strike, 
he  knew  how  to  do  the  wise  thing  and  the  right  thing. 
As  to  the  incident,  he  held  his  hand  and  he  held  his 
tongue,  but  he  went  to  visit  the  wounded  workmen  in 
the  hospital,  and  he  condoled  with  their  families.  He 
was  somewhat  blamed  for  that,  but  his  action  kept 
for  him  the  confidence  of  that  large  body  of  his  sup 
porters  who  earn  their  living  with  their  hands. 

It  is  said  that  the  common  Romans  do  not  willingly 
earn  their  living  with  their  hands;  that  they  like  bet 
ter  being  idle  and,  so  far  as  they  can,  ornamental.  In 
this  they  would  not  differ  from  the  uncommon  Romans, 
the  moneyed,  the  leisured,  the  pedigreed  classes,  who 
reproach  them  for  their  indolence;  but  I  do  not  know 
whether  they  are  so  indolent  as  all  that  or  not.  I 
heard  it  said  that  they  no  longer  want  work,  and  that 
when  they  get  it  they  do  not  do  it  well — a  supposed 
effect  of  the  socialism  which  is  supposed  to  have  spoiled 
their  manners.  I  heard  it  said  more  intelligently,  as 
I  thought,  that  they  are  not  easily  disciplined,  and  that 
they  cannot  be  successfully  associated  in  the  industries 
requiring  workmen  to  toil  in  large  bodies  together; 
they  will  not  stand  that.  Also  I  heard  it  said,  as  I 
thought  again  rather  intelligently,  that  where  work  is 
given  them  to  do  after  a  certain  model,  they  will  con 
form  perfectly  for  the  first  three  or  four  times;  then 
their  fatal  creativeness  comes  into  play,  and  they  be 
gin  to  better  their  instruction  by  trying  to  improve 
upon  the  patterns — that  is,  they  are  artists,  not  artisans. 
They  must  please  their  fancy  in  their  work  or  they 
cannot  do  it  well.  From  my  own  experience  I  can- 

192 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

not  say  whether  this  is  generally  or  only  sometimes 
true,  but  I  can  affirm  that  where  they  delayed  or  erred 
in  their  work  they  took  their  failure  very  amiahly.  I 
never  saw  sweeter  patience  than  that  of  the  Roman 
matron  who  had  undertaken  a  small  job  of  getting  spots 
out  of  a  garment,  and  who  quite  surpassed  me  in  self- 
control  when  she  announced,  day  after  appointed  day, 
that  the  work  was  not  done  yet  or  not  done  perfectly;, 
she  was  politeness  itself. 

On  the  other  hand,  some  young  ladies  at  a  fashion 
able  concert  which  the  queen-mother  honored  with  her 
presence  did  not  seem  very  polite.  They  kept  on  their 
immense  hats,  as  women  still  do  in  all  public  places 
on  the  European  continent,  and  they  seized  as  many 
chairs  as  they  could  for  friends  who  did  not  come,  and 
at  supreme  moments  they  stood  up  on  their  chairs  and 
spoiled  such  poor  chance  of  seeing  the  queen-mother 
as  the  stranger  might  have  had.  While  the  good  King 
Umberto  lived  the  stranger  would  have  had  many  other 
chances,  for  it  is  said  that  the  queen  showed  herself  with 
him  to  the  people  at  the  windows  of  their  palace  every 
afternoon;  but  in  her  widowhood  she  lives  retired, 
though  now  and  then  her  carriage  may  be  seen  pass 
ing  through  the  streets,  with  four  special  policemen 
on  bicycles  following  it.  These  waited  about  the  door 
way  of  the  concert-hall  that  afternoon  and  formed  a 
very  simple,  if  effective,  guard.  In  fact,  it  might  be 
said  that  in  its  relations  with  the  popular  life  the  reign 
ing  family  could  hardly  be  simpler.  The  present  king 
and  queen  are  not  so  much  seen  in  public  as  King 
Umberto  and  Queen  Margherita  were,  but  it  is  known 
from  many  words  and  deeds  that  King  Victor  Emman 
uel  wishes  to  be  the  friend,  if  not  the  acquaintance,  of 
his  people.  When  it  was  proposed  to  push  the  pres 
ent  tunnel,  with  its  walks  and  drives  and  trolley-lines, 
13  193 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

under  the  Quirinal  Palace  and  gardens,  so  as  to  con 
nect  the  two  principal  business  quarters  of  the  city, 
the  king  was  notified  that  the  noise  and  jar  of  the 
traffic  in  it  might  interfere  with  his  comfort.  He  asked 
if  the  tunnel  would  be  for  the  general  advantage,  and, 
when  this  could  not  be  denied,  he  gave  his  consent 
in  words  to  some  such  effect  as  "  That  settles  it." 
When  the  German  Emperor  last  visited  Rome  he  is 
said  to  have  had  some  state  question  as  to  whether 
he  should  drive  on  a  certain  occasion  to  the  Palatine 
with  the  king's  horses  or  the  pope's.  He  who  told  the 
story  did  not  remember  how  the  question  was  solved 
by  the  emperor,  but  he  said,  "  Our  king  walked." 

All  this  does  not  mean  republican  simplicity  in  the 
king;  a  citizen  king  is  doubtless  a  contradiction  in 
terms  anywhere  out  of  France,  and  even  there  Louis 
Philippe  found  the  part  difficult.  But  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  King  of  Italy  means  to  be  the  best  sort 
of  constitutional  king,  and,  as  he  is  in  every  way  an 
uncommon  man,  he  will  probably  succeed.  One  may 
fancy  in  him,  if  one  likes,  something  of  that  almost 
touching  anxiety  of  thoughtful  Italians  to  be  and  to 
do  all  that  they  can  for  Italy,  in  a  patriotism  that 
seems  as  enlightened  as  it  is  devoted.  If  I  had  any 
criticism  to  make  of  such  Italians  it  would  be  that  they 
expected,  or  that  they  asked,  too  much  of  themselves. 
To  be  sure,  they  have  a  right  to  expect  much,  for  they 
have  done  wonders  with  a  country  which,  without  great 
natural  resources  except  of  heart  and  brain,  entered 
bankrupt  into  its  national  existence,  and  has  now  grown 
financially  to  the  dimensions  of  its  vast  treasury  build 
ing,  with  a  paper  currency  at  par  and  of  equal  validity 
with  French  and  English  money.  If  the  industrial 
conditions  in  Italy  were  so  bad  as  we  compassionate 
outsiders  have  been  taught  to  suppose,  this  financial 

104 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

change  is  one  of  the  most  important  events  accom 
plished  in  Europe  since  the  great  era  of  the  racial 
unifications  began.  No  one  will  pretend  that  there 
have  not  been  great  errors  of  administration  in  Italy, 
but  apparently  the  Italians  have  known  how  to  learn 
wisdom  from  their  folly.  There  has  been  a  great 
deal  of  industrial  adversity;  the  cost  of  living  has  ad 
vanced  ;  the  taxes  are  very  heavy,  and  the  burdens  are 
unequally  adjusted;  many  speculators  have  been  ruin 
ed,  and  much  honestly  invested  money  has  been  lost. 
But  wages  have  increased  with  the  prices  and  rents 
and  taxes,  and  in  a  country  where  every  ounce  of  coal 
that  drives  a  wheel  of  production  or  transportation  has 
to  be  brought  a  thousand  miles  manufactures  and  rail 
roads  have  been  multiplied. 

The  state  has  now  taken  over  the  roads  and  has 
added  their  cost  to  that  of  its  expensive  army  and 
navy,  but  no  reasonable  witness  can  doubt  that  the 
Italians  will  be  equal  to  this  as  well  as  their  other 
national  undertakings.  These  in  Rome  are  peculiarly 
difficult  and  onerous,  because  they  must  be  commensu 
rate  with  the  scale  of  antiquity.  In  a  city  surviving 
amid  the  colossal  ruins  of  the  past  it  would  be  gro 
tesque  to  build  anything  of  the  modest  modern  dimen 
sions  such  as  would  satisfy  the  eye  in  other  capitals. 
The  Palace  of  Finance,  at  a  time  when  Italian  paper 
was  at  a  discount  almost  equal  to  that  of  American 
paper  during  the  Civil  War,  had  to  be  prophetic  of  the 
present  solvency  in  size.  The  yet-unfinished  Palace  of 
Justice  (one  dare  not  recognize  its  beauty  above  one's 
breath)  must  be  planned  so  huge  that  the  highest  story 
had  to  be  left  off  if  the  foundations  were  to  support  the 
superstructure;  the  memorial  of  "Victor  Emmanuel  II. 
must  be  of  a  vastness  in  keeping  with  the  monuments 
of  imperial  Rome,  some  of  which  it  will  partly  ob- 

195 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

jure.  Yet  as  the  nation  has  grown  in  strength  under 
Burdens  and  duties,  it  will  doubtless  prove  adequate 
to  the  colossal  architectural  enterprises  of  its  capital. 
Private  speculation  in  Rome  brought  disaster  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  but  now  the  city  has  overflowed  with 
new  life  the  edifices  that  long  stood  like  empty  sepul 
chres,  and  public  enterprises  cannot  finally  fail;  other 
wise  we  should  not  be  digging  the  Panama  Canal  or 
be  trying  to  keep  the  New  York  streets  in  repair.  We 
may  confide  in  the  ability  of  the  Italians  to  carry  out 
their  undertakings  and  to  pay  the  cost  out  of  their  own 
pockets.  It  is  easy  to  criticise  them,  but  we  cannot 
criticise  them  more  severely  than  they  criticise  them 
selves  ;  and  perhaps,  as  our  censure  cannot  profit  them, 
we  might  with  advantage  to  ourselves,  now  and  then, 
convert  it  into  recognition  of  the  great  things  they  have 
accomplished. 

XIII 
CASUAL    IMPRESSIONS 

The  day  that  we  arrived  in  Borne  the  unclouded  sun 
was  yellow  on  the  white  dust  of  the  streets,  which  is 
never  laid  by  a  municipal  watering-cart,  though  some 
times  it  is  sprinkled  into  mire  from  the  garden-hose 
of  the  abutting  hotels;  and  in  my  rashness  I  said  that 
for  Rome  you  want  sun  and  you  want  youth.  Yet  there 
followed  many  gray  days  when  my  age  found  Rome 
very  well  indeed,  and  I  would  not  have  the  septua 
genarian  keep  away  because  he  is  no  longer  in  the 
sunny  sixties.  He  may  see  through  his  glasses  some 
things  hidden  even  from  the  eyes  of  the  early  forties. 
If  he  drives  out  beyond  the  Porta  Pia,  say,  some  bright 
afternoon,  and  notes  how  the  avenue  between  the  beau- 

196 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEES 

tiful  old  villas  is  also  bordered  by  many  vacant  lots 
advertised  for  sale  as  well  as  built  up  with  pleasant 
new  houses,  he  will  be  able  to  carry  away  with 
him  the  significant  fact  that  a  convenient  and  public- 
spirited  trolley-line  has  the  same  suburban  effect  in 
Rome,  Italy,  as  in  Eome,  New  York.  If  he  meets 
some  squadrons  of  cavalry  or  some  regiments  of  foot, 
in  that  military  necessity  of  constant  movement  which 
the  civilian  can  never  understand,  he  may  make  the 
useful  reflection  that  it  is  much  better  to  have  the  troops 
out  of  the  city  than  in  it,  and  he  can  praise  the  wisdom 
of  the  Italian  government  accordingly.  On  the  neigh 
boring  mountains  the  presence  or  absence  of  snow  forms 
the  difference  between  summer  and  winter  in  Rome, 
and  will  suggest  the  question  whether,  after  all,  our  one 
continental  weather  is  better  than  the  many  local 
weathers  of  Europe;  and  perhaps  he  will  acquire 
national  modesty  in  owning  that  there  is  something 
more  picturesque  in  the  indications  of  those  azure  or 
silvery  tops  than  in  his  morning  paper's  announce 
ment  that  there  is  or  is  not  a  lower  pressure  in  the 
region  of  the  lakes. 

At  any  rate,  I  would  not  have  him  note  the  intima 
tions  of  such  a  drive  at  less  worth  than  those  of  any 
more  conventional  fact  of  his  Roman  sojourn.  If  one 
is  quite  honest,  or  merely  as  honest  as  one  may  be 
with  safety,  one  will  often  own  to  one's  self  that  some 
thing  merely  incidental  to  one's  purpose,  in  visiting 
this  memorable  place  or  that,  was  of  greater  charm 
and  greater  value  than  the  fulfilment  of  a  direct  pur 
pose.  One  happy  morning  I  went,  being  in  the  vicin 
ity,  to  renew  the  acquaintance  with  the  Tarpeian  Rock, 
which  I  had  hastened  to  make  on  my  first  visit  to 
Rome.  I  had  then  found  it  so  far  from  such  a  fright 
fully  precipitous  height  as  I  had  led  myself  to  expect 

197 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEES 

that  I  came  away  and  rather  mocked  it  in  print.  But 
now,  possibly  because  the  years  had  moderated  all  my 
expectations  in  life,  I  thought  the  Tarpeian  Rock  very 
respectably  steep  and  quite  impressively  lofty;  either 
the  houses  at  its  foot  had  sunk  with  their  chimneys  and 
balconies,  or  the  rock  had  risen,  so  that  one  could  no 
longer  be  hurled  from  it  with  impunity.  We  looked 
at  it  from  an  arbor  of  the  lovely  little  garden  which  we 
were  let  into  beyond  the  top  of  the  rock,  and  which 
was  the  pleasance  of  some  sort  of  hospital.  I  think 
there  were  probably  flowers  there,  since  it  was  a  gar 
den,  but  what  was  best  was  the  almond-tree  covering 
the  whole  space  with  a  roof  of  bloom,  and  in  this  roof 
a  score  of  birds  that  sang  divinely. 

I  am  aware  of  bringing  a  great  many  birds  into 
these  papers;  but  really  Rome  would  not  be  Rome 
without  them;  and  I  could  not  exaggerate  their  num 
ber  or  the  sweetness  of  their  song.  They  particularly 
abounded  in  the  cloistered  and  gardened  close  of  the 
Cistercian  Convent,  which  three  hundred  years  ago 
ensconsed  itself  within  the  ruinous  Baths  of  Diocle 
tian.  I  have  no  fable  at  hand  to  explain  what  seems 
the  special  preference  of  the  birds  for  this  garden; 
it  is  possibly  an  idiosyncrasy,  something  like  that  of 
the  cats  which  make  Trajan's  Forum  their  favorite 
resort.  All  that  I  can  positively  say  is  that  if  I  were 
a  bird  I  would  ask  nothing  better  than  to  frequent  the 
cypresses  of  that  garden  and  tune  my  numbers  for  the 
entertainment  of  the  audience  of  extraordinary  mon 
sters  in  the  aisles  below,  which  begin  plinths  of  clipped 
privet  and  end  marble  heads  of  horses,  bulls,  elephants, 
rhinoceroses,  and  their  like.  T  do  not  pretend  to  be 
exact  in  their  nomination;  they  may  be  other  animals; 
but  I  am  sure  of  their  attention  to  the  birds.  I  am  not 
quite  so  sure  of  the  attention  of  the  antique  shapes  in 

198 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

the  rooms  of  the  Ludovisi  collection  looking  into  the 
close.  I  fancy  them  preoccupied  with  the  in-doors  cold, 
so  great  in  all  Italian  galleries,  and  scarcely  tempered 
for  them  by  the  remote  and  solitary  brazier  over  which 
the  custodians  take  turns  in  stifling  themselves.  They 
cannot  come  down  into  the  sun  and  song  of  the  gar 
den,  to  which  the  American  tourist  may  return  from 
visiting  them,  to  thaw  out  his  love  of  the  beautiful. 

They  are  not  so  many  or  so  famous  as  their  marble 
brothers  and  sisters  in  the  Vatican  Museum,  but  the 
tourist  should  not  miss  seeing  them.  Neither  should 
he  miss  any  accessible  detail  of  the  environing  ruins 
of  the  Diocletian  Baths.  Let  him  not  think  because 
they  are  so  handy,  and  so  next  door,  as  it  were,  to  the 
railway  station  where  he  arrives,  and  to  Cook's  office 
where  he  goes  for  his  letters  next  morning,  that  they 
are  of  less  merit  than  other  monuments  of  imperial 
Rome.  They  are  not  only  colossally  vast,  but  they  are 
singularly  noble,  as  well  as  so  admirably  convenient. 
Because  they  are  so  convenient,  the  modern  Romans 
have  turned  their  cavernous  immensity  to  account  in 
the  trades  and  industries,  and  have  built  them  up  in 
carpenters'  and  blacksmiths'  and  plumbers'  shops, 
where  there  is  a  cheerful  hammering  and  banging 
much  better  than  the  sullen  silence  of  more  remote 
and  difficult  ruins.  In  color  they  are  a  very  agree 
able  reddish  brown,  though  not  so  soft  to  the  eye  as 
the  velvety  masses  of  the  Palatine,  which  at  any  dis 
tance  great  enough  to  obscure  their  excavation  have 
a  beauty  like  that  of  primitive  nature.  I  do  not  know 
but  you  see  these  best  from  the  glazed  terrace  of  that 
restaurant  on  the  Aventine  which  is  the  resort  of  the 
well-advised  Romans  and  visitors,  and  from  which  you 
look  across  to  the  mount  of  fallen  and  buried  grandeur 
over  a  champaign  of  gardens  and  orchards.  All  round 

199 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

is  a  landscape  which  I  was  not  able  to  think  of  as  less 
than  tremendous,  with  the  whole  of  Rome  in  it,  and  the 
snow-topped  hills  about  it — a  scene  to  which  you  may 
well  give  more  than  a  moment  from  the  varied  com 
pany  at  the  other  tables,  where  English,  German, 
French,  and  Americans,  as  well  as  Italians,  are  return 
ing  to  the  simple  life  in  their  enjoyment  of  the  local 
dishes,  washed  down  with  golden  draughts  of  local  wine, 
served  ciderwise  in  generous  jugs. 

If  your  mind  is,  as  ours  was  in  that  place,  to  drive 
farther  and  see  the  chapter-house  of  the  Knights  of 
Malta,  clinging  to  the  height  over  the  Tiber,  and  look 
ing  up  and  down  its  yellow  torrent  and  the  black  boats 
along  the  shore,  with  universal  Rome  melting  into  the 
distance,  you  must  not  fail  to  stop  at  the  old,  old 
Church  of  St.  Sabina.  You  will  naturally  want  to 
see  this,  not  only  because  there  in  the  cloister  (as  the 
ladies  can  ascertain  at  the  window  let  into  the  wall 
for  their  dangerous  eyes  to  peer  through  from  the 
outside)  is  the  successor  of  the  orange  -  tree  trans 
planted  from  the  Holy  Land  by  St.  Dominic  six  or 
seven  hundred  years  ago;  not  only  because  one  of  the 
doors  of  the  church,  covered  with  Bible  stories,  is 
thought  the  oldest  wood  -  carving  in  the  world,  but 
also  because  there  will  be  sitting  in  his  white  robes 
on  a  bench  beside  the  nave  an  aged  Dominican  monk 
reading  some  holy  book,  with  his  spectacles  fallen  for 
ward  on  his  nose  and  his  cowl  fallen  back  on  his  neck, 
and  his  wide  tonsure  gleaming  glacially  in  the  pale 
light,  whom  nothing  in  the  church  or  its  visitors  can 
distract  from  his  devotions. 

It  is  very,  very  cold  in  there,  but  he  probably  would 
not,  if  he  could,  follow  you  into  the  warm  outer  world 
and  on  into  the  garden  of  the  Knights,  who  came  here 
after  they  had  misruled  Malta  for  centuries  and  finally 

200 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

rendered  a  facile  submission  to  General  Bonaparte  of 
the  French  Republican  army  in  1798.  Their  fixing 
here  cannot  be  called  anything  so  vigorous  as  their 
last  stand;  but,  without  specific  reference  to  the  easy- 
chairs  in  their  chapter-house,  it  may  be  fitly  called 
their  last  seat;  and,  if  it  is  true  that  none  of  plebeian 
blood  may  enjoy  the  order's  privileges,  the  place  will 
afford  another  of  those  satisfactions  which  the  best  of 
all  possible  worlds  is  always  offering  its  admirers. 
Even  if  one  were  disposed  to  moralize  the  comfort 
able  end  of  the  poor  Knights  harshly,  one  must  ad 
mit  that  their  view  of  Home  is  one  of  the  unrivalled 
views,  and  that  the  glimpse  of  St.  Peter's  through  the 
key  -  hole  of  their  garden  -  gate  is  little  short  of  un 
rivalled.  I  could  not  manage  the  glimpse  myself, 
but  I  can  testify  to  the  unique  character  of  the  ave 
nue  of  clipped  box  and  laurel  which  the-  key  -  hole 
also  commands.  Lovers  of  the  supernatural,  of  which 
I  am  the  first,  will  like  to  be  reminded,  or  perhaps  in 
structed,  that  the  Church  of  the  Priory  stands  on  the 
spot  where  Remus  had  a  seance  with  the  spiritual  au 
thorities  and  was  advised  against  building  Rome  where 
he  proposed,  being  shoAvn  only  six  vultures  as  against 
twelve  that  Romulus  saw  in  favor  of  his  chosen  site. 
The  fact  gave  the  Aventine  Hill  the  fame  of  bad  luck, 
but  any  one  may  safely  visit  it  now,  after  the  long 
time  that  has  passed. 

I  do  not,  however,  advise  visiting  it  above  any  other 
place  in  Rome.  What  I  always  say  is,  take  your 
chances  with  any  or  every  time  or  place;  you  cannot 
fail  of  some  impression  which  you  will  always  like 
recurring  to  as  characteristically  delightful.  For  in 
stance,  I  once  walked  home  from  the  Piazza  di  Spagna 
with  some  carnival  masks  frolicking  about  me  through 

the  sun-shotten  golden  dust  of  the  delicious  evening  air. 

201 


EOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEKS 

and  I  had  a  pleasure  from  the  experience  which  I  shall 
never  forget.  It  was  as  rich  as  that  I  got  from  the 
rosy  twilight  in  which  I  wandered  homeward  another 
time  from  the  Piazza  di  ^7'enezia  and  found  myself 
passing  the  Fountain  of  Trevi,  and  lingered  long  there 
and  would  not  throw  my  penny  into  its  waters  because 
I  knew  I  could  not  help  coming  back  to  Rome  any 
how.  Yet  another  time  I  was  driving  through  a  cer 
tain  piazza  where  the  peasants  stand  night  long  wait 
ing  to  be  hired  by  the  proprietors  who  come  to  find 
them  there,  and  suddenly  the  piety  of  the  Middle 
Ages  stood  before  me  in  the  figure  of  the  Brother 
hood  of  the  Misericordia,  draped  to  the  foot  and  hood 
ed  in  their  gray,  unbleached  linen.  The  brothers  were 
ranged  in  a  file  at  the  doors  of  the  church  ready  to 
visit  the  house  of  sickness  or  of  mourning,  barefooted, 
with  their  eyes  showing  spectrally  through  their  masks 
and  their  hands  coming  soft  and  white  out  of  their 
sleeves  and  betraying  the  lily  class  that  neither  toils 
nor  spins  and  yet  is  bound,  as  in  the  past,  to  the  poor 
est  and  humblest  through  the  only  Church  that  knows 
how  to  unite  them  in  the  offering  and  acceptance  of 
reciprocal  religious  duties. 

In  Rome,  as  elsewhere  in  Catholic  countries,  it  seem 
ed  to  me  that  the  worshippers  were  mostly  of  the  poorer 
classes  and  were  mostly  old  women,  but  in  the  Church 
of  the  Jesuits  I  saw  worshippers  almost  as  well  dressed 
as  the  average  of  our  Christian  Scientists,  and  in  that 
church,  whose  name  I  forget,  but  which  is  in  the  wide 
street  or  narrow  piazza  below  the  windows  of  the 
palace  where  the  last  Stuarts  lived  and  died,  my  in 
eradicable  love  of  gentility  was  flattered  and  my  faith 
in  the  final  sanctification  of  good  society  restored  by 
the  sight  of  gentlemen  coming  to  and  going  from  prayer 
with  their  silk  hats  in  their  hands. 

202 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

The  performance  of  ritual  implies  a  certain  measure 
of  mechanism,  and  the  wonder  is  that  in  the  Catholic 
churches  it  is  not  more  mechanical  than  it  actually 
is.  I  was  no  great  frequenter  of  functions,  and  I 
cannot  claim  that  my  superior  spirituality  was  ever 
deeply  wounded ;  sometimes  it  was  even  supported  and 
consoled.  I  noted,  without  offence,  in  the  Church  of 
San  Giuseppe  how  the  young  monk,  who  preached  an 
eloquent  sermon  on  the  saint's  life  and  character,  ex 
hausted  himself  before  he  exhausted  his  topic,  and  sat 
down  between  the  successive  heads  of  his  discourse  and 
took  a  good  rest.  It  was  the  saint's  day,  which  seemed 
more  generally  observed  than  any  other  saint's  day  in 
Rome,  and  his  baroque  church  in  Via  Capo  le  Case 
was  thronged  with  people,  mostly  poor  and  largely 
peasants,  who  were  apparently  not  so  fatigued  by  the 
preacher's  shrill,  hard  delivery  as  he  was  himself. 
There  were  many  children,  whom  their  elders  held  up 
to  see,  and  there  was  one  young  girl  in  a  hat  as  wide 
as  a  barrel-head  standing  up  where  others  sat,  and 
blotting  out  the  prospect  of  half  the  church  with  her 
flaring  brim  and  flaunting  feathers.  The  worshippers 
came  and  went,  and  while  the  monk  preached  and  re 
posed  a  man  crept  dizzy ingly  round  the  cornice  with  a 
taper  at  the  end  of  a  long  pole  lighting  the  chandeliers, 
while  two  other  men  on  the  floor  kindled  the  candles 
before  the  altars.  As  soon  as  their  work  was  completed, 
the  monk,  as  if  he  had  been  preaching  against  time, 
sat  definitely  down  and  left  us  to  the  rapture  of  the 
perfected  splendor.  The  high-altar  was  canopied  and 
curtained  in  crimson,  fringed  with  gold,  and  against 
this  the  candle-flames  floated  like  yellow  flowers.  Sud 
denly,  amid  the  hush  and  expectance,  a  tenor  voice 
pealed  from  the  organ  -  loft,  and  a  train  of  priests 

issued  from  the  sacristy  and  elbowed  and  shouldered 

203 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

their  way  through  the  crowd  to  the  high-altar,  where 
their  intoning,  like  so  many 

"  Silver  snarling  trumpets  'gan  to  glide," 

and  those  flower-like  flames  and  that  tenor  voice  seemed 
to  sing  together,  and  all  sense  of  mortal  agency  in  the 
effect  was  lost. 

How  much  our  pale  Northern  faith  has  suffered  from 
the  elimination  of  the  drama  which  is  so  large  an  ele 
ment  in  the  worship  of  the  South  could  not  be  conject 
ured  without  offence  to  both.  Drama  I  have  said,  but, 
if  I  had  said  opera,  it  would  have  been  equally  with 
the  will  merely  to  recognize  the  fact  and  not  to  censure 
it.  Many  have  imagined  a  concert  of  praise  in  heaven, 
and  portrayed  it  as  a  spectacle  of  which  the  elder  Chris 
tian  worship  seems  emulous.  Go,  therefore,  to  Rome, 
dear  fellow-Protestant,  with  any  measure  of  ignorance 
short  of  mine,  but  leave  as  much  of  your  prejudice 
behind  you  as  you  can.  You  are  not  more  likely  to 
become  a  convert  because  of  your  tolerance;  in  fact, 
you  may  be  the  safer  for  it;  and  it  will  prepare  you 
for  a  gentler  pleasure  than  you  would  otherwise  enjoy 
in  the  rites  and  ceremonies  which  seem  exotic  in  our 
wintrier  world,  but  which  are  here  native  to  the  cli 
mate,  or,  at  least,  could  not  have  had  their  origin  under 
any  but  oriental  or  meridional  skies.  The  kindlier 
mood  will  help  you  to  a  truer  appreciation  of  that 
peculiar  keeping  of  the  churches  which  the  stranger 
is  apt  to  encounter  in  his  approach.  Be  tender  of  the 
hapless  mendicants  at  the  door;  they  are  not  there 
for  their  pleasure,  those  blind  and  halt  and  old.  Be 
modestly  receptive  of  the  good  office  of  the  whole  tribe  of 
cicerones,  of  custodians,  of  sacristans ;  they  can  save  you 
time,  which,  though  it  is  not  quite  the  same  as  money, 

204 


CHURCH    OF    ST.    JOHN    LATERAN    AND    LATERAN    PALACE 


OF   TH€ 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

even  in  Rome  is  worth  saving,  and  are  the  repository 
of  many  rejected  fables  waiting  to  be  recognized  as 
facts  again.  I,  for  instance,  committed  the  potential 
error  of  wholly  rejecting  with  scorn  the  services  of 
an  authorized  guide  to  the  Church  of  St.  John  Lateran 
because  he  said  the  tariff  was  three  francs.  But  after 
wandering,  the  helpless  prey  of  my  own  Baedeker,  up 
and  down  the  huge  temple,  I  was  glad  to  find  him 
waiting  my  emergence  where  I  had  left  him,  in  the 
church  porch,  one  of  the  most  pathetic  figures  that 
ever  wrung  the  remorseful  heart. 

His  poor  black  clothes  showed  the  lustre  of  inveter 
ate  wear;  his  waistcoat  would  have  been  the  better  for 
a  whole  bottle  of  benzine;  his  shoes,  if  they  did  not 
share  the  polish  of  those  threadbare  textures,  recip 
rocated  the  effect  of  his  broken-spirited  cuffs  and  col 
lar,  and  the  forlorn  gentility  of  his  hat.  His  beard 
had  not  been  shaved  for  three  days ;  I  do  not  know  why, 
but  doubtless  for  as  good  a  reason  as  that  his  shirt  had 
not  been  washed  for  seven.  It  was  with  something  like 
a  cry  for  pardon  of  my  previous  brutality  that  I  now 
closed  with  his  unabated  demand  of  a  three-franc  fee, 
and  we  went  with  him  wherever  he  would,  from  one 
holy  edifice  to  another  of  those  that  constitute  the 
church;  but  I  will  not  ask  the  reader  to  follow  us  in 
the  cab  which  he  mounted  into  with  us,  but  which 
would  not  conveniently  hold  four.  Let  him  look  it 
all  up  in  the  admirably  compendious  pages  of  Hare 
and  Murray,  and  believe,  if  he  can,  that  I  missed  noth 
ing  of  that  history  and  mystery.  If  I  speak  merely 
of  the  marvellous  baptistery,  it  is  doubtless  not  because 
the  other  parts  were  not  equally  worthy  of  my  won 
der,  but  because  I  would  not  have  even  an  enemy  miss 
the  music  of  the  singing  doors,  mighty  valves  of  bronze 
which,  when  thev  turn  upon  their  hinges,  emit  a  mur- 

205 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

mur  of  grief  or  a  moan  of  remorse  for  whatever  heathen 
uses  they  once  served  the  wicked  Caracalla  at  his  baths. 
Not  to  have  heard  their  rich  harmony  would  be  like 
not  having  heard  the  echo  in  the  baptistery  of  Pisa,  a 
life-long  loss. 

Heaven  knows  how  punctiliously  our  guide  would 
have  acquainted  us  with  every  particular  of  the  Lateran 
group,  which  for  a  thousand  years  before  the  Vatican 
was  the  home  of  the  popes.  We  begged  off  from  this 
and  that,  but  even  indolence  like  mine  would  not  spare 
itself  the  sight  of  the  Scala  Santa.  That  was  another 
of  the  things  which  I  distinctly  remembered  from  the 
year  1864,  and  I  did  not  find  the  spectacle  of  the  mod 
ern  penitents  covering  the  holy  steps  different  in  1908. 
Now,  as  then,  there  was  something  incongruous  in  their 
fashions  and  aspirations,  but  one  could  not  doubt  that 
it  was  a  genuine  piety  that  nerved  them  to  climb  up 
and  down  the  hard  ascent  on  their  knees,  or,  at  the 
worst,  that  it  was  good  exercise.  Still,  I  would  rather 
leave  my  reader  the  sense  of  that  most  noble  fagade 
of  the  church,  with  its  lofty  balustraded  entablature, 
where  the  gigantic  Christ  and  ten  of  his  saints  look 
out  forever  to  the  Alban  hills. 


XIV 
TIVOLI    AND    FRASCATI 

One  of  the  most  agreeable  illusions  of  travel  is  a 
sort  of  expectation  that  if  you  will  give  objects  of  in 
terest  time  enough  they  will  present  themselves  to  you, 
and,  if  they  will  not  actually  come  to  you  in  your 
hotel,  will  happen  in  your  way  when  you  go  out.  This 
was  my  notion  of  the  ri^ht  way  of  seeing  Rome,  but, 

^"206 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    x\ND    OTHERS 

as  the  days  of  my  winter  passed,  so  many  memorable 
monuments  failed  not  merely  to  seek  me  out,  but  stiffly 
held  aloof  from  me  in  my  walks  abroad,  that  I  began 
to  feel  anxious  lest  I  should  miss  them  altogether.  I 
had,  for  instance,  always  had  the  friendliest  curiosity 
concerning  Tivoli  and  Frascati  as  the  two  most  amiable 
Eoman  neighborhoods,  and  hoped  to  see  both  of  them 
in  some  informal  and  casual  sort;  but  they  persisted 
so  long  in  keeping  off  on  their  respective  hills  that  I 
saw  something  positive  on  my  part  must  be  done. 
Clearly  I  must  make  the  advances;  and  so  when,  one 
morning  of  mid-March,  a  friend  sent  to  ask  if  we  would 
not  motor  out  to  Tivoli  with  him  and  his  family,  I 
closed  eagerly  with  the  chance  of  a  compromise  which 
would  save  feeling  all  round.  My  friend  has  never 
yet  known  how  he  was  bringing  Tivoli  and  me  together 
after  a  mutual  diffidence,  but,  as  he  was  a  poet,  I  am 
sure  he  will  be  glad  to  know  now. 

Our  road  across  the  Campagna  lay  the  greater  part 
of  the  distance  beside  the  tram-line,  but  at  other  points 
parted  with  it  and  stretched  rough,  if  lately  mended, 
and  smooth,  if  long  neglected,  between  the  wide,  lone 
ly  pastures  and  narrow  drill-sown  fields  of  wheat.  The 
Campagna  is  said  to  be  ploughed  only  once  in  five 
years  by  the  peasants  for  the  proprietors,  who  have 
philosophized  its  fertility  as  something  that  can  be 
better  restored  by  the  activities  of  nature  in  that  time 
than  by  phosphates  in  less.  As  they  are  mostly  Ro 
man  patricians,  they  have  always  felt  able  to  wait; 
but  now  it  is  said  that  northern  Italian  capital  and 
enterprise  are  coming  in,  and  the  Campagna  will  soon 
be  cropped  every  season,  though  as  yet  its  chief  yield 
seemed  to  be  the  two-year-old  colts  we  saw  browsing 
about.  For  some  distance  we  had  the  company  of  the 
different  aqueducts,  but  their  broken  stretches  present- 

207 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEKS 

ly  ceased  altogether,  and  then  for  other  human  asso 
ciation  we  had,  besides  the  fencings  of  the  meadows, 
only  the  huts  and  shelters  scattered  among  the  grassy 
humps  and  hollows.  There  were  more  humps  than  I 
had  remembered  of  the  Campagna,  and  probably  they 
were  the  rounded  and  turfed-over  chunks  of  antiquity 
which  otherwhere  showed  their  naked  masonry  unsoft- 
ened  and  unfriended  by  the  passing  centuries.  At 
times  a  dusty  hamlet,  that  seemed  to  crop  up  from 
the  roadside  ditches,  followed  us  a  little  way  with 
children  that  shouted  for  joy  in  our  motor  and  dogs 
that  barked  for  pleasure  in  their  joy.  Women  with 
the  square  linen  head-dress  of  the  Roman  peasants  stood 
and  stared,  and  sallow  men,  each  with  his  jacket  hang 
ing  from,  one  of  his  shoulders,  seemed  stalking  backward 
from  us  as  we  whirled  by.  Here  and  there  we  scared 
a  horse  or  a  mule,  but  we  did  not  so  much  as  run  over 
a  hen;  and  both  man  and  beast  are  becoming  here,  as 
elsewhere,  reconciled  to  the  automobile.  ~Now  and  then 
a  carter  would  set  his  team  slantwise  in  our  course 
and  stay  us  out  of  good-humored  deviltry,  and  when 
he  let  us  pass  would  fling  some  chaff  to  the  fresh-faced 
English  youngster  who  was  our  chauffeur. 

"  I  suppose  you  don't  always  understand  what  those 
fellows  say,"  I  suggested  from  my  seat  beside  him. 

"  No,  sir,"  he  confessed.  "  But  I  give  it  to  'em 
back  in  English,"  he  added,  joyously. 

He  rather  liked  these  encounters,  apparently,  but 
not  the  beds  of  sharp,  broken  stone  with  which  the  road 
was  repaired.  It  was  his  belief  that  there  was  not  a 
steam-roller  in  all  Italy,  and  he  seemed  to  reserve  an 
opinion  of  the  government's  motives  in  the  matter 
with  respect  to  motors,  as  if  he  thought  them  bad. 

The  scenery  of  the  Campagna  was  not  varied.  Once 
we  came  to  a  battlemented  tomb,  of  mighty  girth  and 

208 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

height,  as  perdurable  in  its  masonry  as  the  naked,  stony 
hills  that  in  the  distance  propped  the  mountains  faint 
ing  along  the  horizon  under  their  burden  of  snow.  But 
as  we  drew  nearer  Tivoli  the  hills  drew  nearer  us,  and 
now  they  were  no  longer  naked,  but  densely  covered 
with  the  gray,  interminable  stretch  of  the  olive  forests. 
The  olive  is  the  tree  which,  of  all  others,  is  the  friend 
of  civilized  man;  it  is  older  and  kinder  even  than  the 
apple,  which  is  its  next  rival  in  beneficence;  but  these 
two  kinds  are  so  like  each  other,  in  the  mass,  that  this 
boundless  forest  of  olives  around  Tivoli  offered  an 
image  of  all  the  aggregated  apple  -  orchards  in  the 
world.  Where  the  trees  came  closest  to  the  road 
they  seemed  to  watch  our  passing,  each  with  its  trunk 
aslant  and  its  branches  akimbo,  in  a  humorous  make- 
believe  of  being  in  some  joke  with  us,  like  so  many 
gnarled  and  twisted  apple-trees,  used  to  children's  play- 
fellowship.  You  felt  a  racial  intimacy  with  the  whim 
sical  and  antic  shapes  which  your  brief  personal  con 
sciousness  denied  in  vain;  and  you  rose  among  the 
slopes  around  Tivoli  with  a  sense  of  home  -  coming 
from  the  desert  of  the  Campagna.  But  in  the  distance 
to  which  the  olive  forests  stretched  they  lost  this  ef 
fect  of  tricksy  familiarity.  They  looked  like  a  gray 
sea  against  the  horizon;  more  fantastically  yet,  they 
seemed  a  vast  hoar  silence,  full  of  mystery  and  lone 
liness. 

If  Tivoli  does  not  flourish  so  frankly  on  its  oil  as 
Frascati  on  its  wine,  it  is  perhaps  because  it  has  of 
late  years  tacitly  prospered  as  much  on  the  electricity 
which  its  wonderful  and  beautiful  waterfalls  enable  it 
to  furnish  as  abundantly  to  Rome  as  our  own  Niagara 
to  Buffalo.  The  scrupulous  Hare,  whose  Walks  in 
Rome  include  Tivoli,  does  not,  indeed,  advise  you  to 
visit  the  electrical  works,  but  he  says  that  if  you  have 
14  209 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

not  strength  enough  for  all  the  interests  and  attractions 
of  Tivoli  it  will  be  wise  to  give  yourself  entirely  to 
the  cascades  and  to  the  Villa  d'Este,  and  this  was 
what  we  instinctively  did,  but  in  the  reverse  order. 
Chance  rewarded  us  before  we  left  the  villa  with  a 
sight  of  the  electric  plant,  which  just  below  the  villa 
walls  smokes  industriously  away  with  a  round,  red 
brick  chimney  almost  as  lofty  and  as  ugly  as  some 
chimney  in  America.  On  our  way  to  and  fro  we 
necessarily  passed  through  the  town,  which,  with  its 
widish  but  not  straightish  chief  street,  I  found  as  clean 
as  Rome  itself,  and  looking,  after  the  long  tumult  of 
its  history,  beginning  well  back  in  fable,  as  peaceable 
as  Montclair,  New  Jersey.  It  had  its  charm,  and,  if 
I  could  have  spent  two  weeks  there  instead  of  two 
hours,  I  might  impart  its  effect  in  much  more  cir 
cumstance  than  I  can  now  promise  the  reader.  Most 
of  my  little  time  I  gladly  gave  to  the  villa,  which,  with 
the  manifold  classic  associations  of  the  region,  attracts 
the  stranger  and  helps  the  cataracts  sum  up  all  that 
most  people  can  keep  of  Tivoli. 

The  Villa  d'Este  is  not  yet  a  ruin,  but  it  is  ruinous 
enough  to  win  the  fancy  without  cumbering  it  with  the 
mere  rubbish  of  decay.  Some  neglected  pleasances 
are  so  far  gone  that  you  cannot  wish  to  live  in  them, 
but  the  forgottenness  of  the  Villa  d'Este  hospitably 
allured  me  to  instant  and  permament  occupation,  so 
that  when  I  heard  it  could  now  be  bought,  casino  and 
all,  for  thirty  thousand  dollars,  nothing  but  the  want 
of  the  money  kept  me  from  making  the  purchase.  I 
indeed  recognized  certain  difficulties  in  living  there 
the  year  round ;  but  who  lives  anywhere  the  year  round 
if  he  can  help  it?  The  casino,  standing  among  the 
simpler  town  buildings  on  the  plateau  above  the  gar 
dens,  would  be  a  little  inclement,  for  all  its  fresco- 

210 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEES 

ing  and  stuccoing  by  the  sixteenth-century  arts,  and 
in  its  noble  halls,  amid  the  painted  and  modelled  fig 
ures,  the  new  American  proprietor  would  shiver  with 
the  former  host  and  guests  after  the  first  autumn  chill 
began;  but  while  it  was  yet  summer  it  would  be  as 
delicious  there  as  in  the  aisles  and  avenues  of  the 
garden  which  its  balustrated  terrace  looked  into.  From 
that  level  you  descend  by  marble  steps  which  must  have 
some  trouble  in  knowing  themselves  from  the  cascades 
pouring  down  the  broken  steeps  beside  them,  and  com- 
panionably  sharing  their  seclusion  among  the  cypresses 
and  ilexes.  You  are  never  out  of  the  sight  and  sound 
of  the  plunging  water,  which  is  still  trained  in  falls 
and  fountains,  or  left  to  a  pathetic  dribble  through  the 
tattered  stucco  of  the  neglected  grots.  It  is  now  a  good 
three  centuries  and  a  half  since  the  Cardinal  Ippolito 
d'Este  had  these  gardens  laid  out  and  his  pleasure- 
house  built  overlooking  them;  and  his  gardener  did 
not  plan  so  substantially  as  his  architect.  In  fact,  you 
might  suppose  that  the  landscapist  wrought  with  an  eye 
to  the  loveliness  of  the  ruin  it  all  would  soon  fall  into, 
and,  where  he  used  atone,  used  it  fragilely,  so  that  it 
would  ultimately  suggest  old  frayed  and  broken  lace. 
Clearly  he  meant  some  of  the  cataracts  to  face  one  an 
other,  and  to  have  a  centre  from  which  they  could  all 
be  seen — say  the  still,  dull-green  basin  which  occupies 
a  large  space  in  the  grounds  between  them.  But  he 
must  have  meant  this  for  a  surprise  to  the  spectator, 
who  easily  misses  it  under  the  trees  overleaning  the 
moss-grown  walks  which  hardly  kept  themselves  from 
running  wild.  There  is  a  sense  of  crumbling  decora 
tions  of  statues,  broken  in  their  rococo  caverns;  of 
cypresses  carelessly  grouped  and  fallen  out  of  their 
proper  straightness  and  slimness;  of  unkempt  bushes 

crowding  the  space  beneath;  of  fragmentary  gods  or 

211 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

giants  half  hid  in  the  tangling  grasses.  It  all  has  the 
air  of  something  impatiently  done  for  eager  luxury, 
and  its  greatest  charm  is  such  as  might  have  been  ex 
pected  to  be  won  from  eventual  waste  and  wreck.  If 
there  was  design  in  the  treatment  of  the  propitious 
ground,  self-shaped  to  an  irregular  amphitheatre,  it  is 
now  obscured,  and  the  cultiavted  tourist  of  our  day  may 
reasonably  please  himself  with  the  belief  that  he  is 
having  a  better  time  there  than  the  academic  Roman 
of  the  sixteenth  century. 

Academic  it  all  is,  however  hastily  and  nonchalant 
ly,  and  I  feel  that  I  have  so  signally  failed  to  make 
the  charm  of  the  villa  felt  that  I  am  going  to  let  a 
far  politer  observer  celebate  the  beauties  of  the  other 
supreme  interest  of  Tivoli.  When  Mr.  Gray  (as  the 
poet  loved  to  be  called  in  print)  visited  the  town  with 
Mr.  Walpole  in  May,  1740,  the  Villa  d'Este  by  no 
means  shared  the  honors  of  the  cataracts,  and  Mr. 
Gray  seems  not  to  have  thought  it  worth  seriously  de 
scribing  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  West,  but  mocks  the  casino 
with  a  playful  mention  before  proceeding  to  speak 
fully,  if  still  playfully,  of  the  great  attraction  of 
Tivoli :  "  Dame  Nature  .  .  .  has  built  here  three  or 
four  little  mountains  and  laid  them  out  in  an  irregu 
lar  semicircle ;  from  certain  others  behind,  at  a  greater 
distance,  she  has  drawn  a  canal  into  which  she  has  put 
a  little  river  of  hers  called  the  Anio,  .  .  .  which  she 
has  no  sooner  done,  but,  like  a  heedless  chit,  it  tumbles 
down  a  declivity  fifty  feet  perpendicular,  breaks  itself 
all  to  shatters,  and  is  converted  into  a  shower  of  rain, 
where  the  sun  forms  many  a  bow — red,  green,  blue, 
and  yellow.  .  .  .  By  this  time  it  has  divided  itself, 
being  crossed  and  opposed  by  the  rocks,  into  four  sev 
eral  streams,  each  of  which,  in  emulation  of  the  greater 
one,  will  tumble  down,  too;  and  it  does  tumble  down, 

212 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEKS 

but  not  from  an  equally  elevated  place;  so  that  you 
have  at  one  view  all  these  cascades  intermixed  with 
groves  of  olive  and  little  woods,  the  mountains  rising 
behind  them,  and  on  the  top  of  one  (that  which  forms 
the  extremity  of  the  half-circle's  horns)  is  seated  the 
town  itself.  At  the  very  extremity  of  that  extremity, 
on  the  brink  of  the  precipice,  stands  the  Sibyls'  Tem 
ple,  the  remains  of  a  little  rotunda,  surrounded  with  its 
portico,  above  half  of  whose  beautiful  Corinthian  pil 
lars  are  still  standing  and  entire." 

For  the  reader  who  has  been  on  the  spot  the  poet's 
words  will  paint  a  vivid  picture  of  the  scene;  for 
the  reader  who  has  not  been  there,  so  much  the  worse ; 
he  should  lose  no  time  in  going,  and  drinking  a  cup 
of  the  local  wine  at  a  table  of  the  restaurant  now  in 
possession  of  Mr.  Gray's  point  of  view.  I  do  not  know 
a  more  filling  moment,  exclusive  of  the  wine,  than  he 
can  enjoy  there,  with  those  cascades  before  him  and 
those  temples  beside  him ;  for  Mr.  Gray  has  mentioned 
only  one  of  the  two,  I  do  not  know  why,  that  exist  on 
this  enchanted  spot,  and  that  define  their  sharp,  black 
shadows  as  with  an  inky  line  just  beyond  the  restaurant 
tables.  One  is  round  and  the  other  oblong,  and  the 
round  one  has  been  called  the  Sibyls',  though  now  it  is 
getting  itself  called  Yesta's — the  goddess  who  long  un 
rightfully  claimed  the  temple  of  Mater  Matuta  in  the 
Forum  Boarium  at  Rome.  As  Vesta  has  lately  been 
dispossessed  there  by  archaeology  (which  seems  in  Rome 
to  enjoy  the  plenary  powers  of  our  Boards  of  Health), 
she  may  have  been  given  the  Sibyls'  Temple  at  Tivoli 
in  compensation;  but  all  this  does  not  really  matter. 
What  really  matters  is  the  mighty  chasm  which  yawns 
away  almost  from  your  feet,  where  you  sit,  and  the 
cataracts,  from  their  brinks,  high  or  low,  plunging  into 
it,  and  the  wavering  columns  of  mist  weakly  striving 

213 


EOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEKS 

upward  out  of  it:  the  whole  backed  by  those  moun 
tains  Mr.  Gray  mentions,  with  belts  of  olive  orchard 
on  their  flanks,  and  wild  paths  furrowing  and  wrink 
ling  their  stern  faces.  To  your  right  there  is  a  sheeted 
cataract  falling  from  the  basins  of  the  town  laundry, 
where  the  toil  of  the  washers  melts  into  music,  and 
their  chatter,  like  that  of  birds,  drifts  brokenly  across 
the  abyss  to  you.  While  you  sit  musing  or  murmuring 
in  your  rapture,  two  mandolins  and  a  guitar  smiling 
ly  intrude,  and  after  a  prelude  of  Italian  airs  swing 
into  strains  which  presently,  through  your  r every,  you 
irecognize  as  "  In  the  Bowery  "  and  "  Just  One  Girl," 
and  the  smile  of  the  two  mandolins  and  the  guitar 
spreads  to  a  grin  of  sympathy,  and  you  are  no  longer  at 
the  Gaffe  Sibylla  in  Tivoli,  but  in  your  own  Manhattan 
on  some  fairy  roof-garden,  or  at  some  sixty-cent  table 
d'hote,,  with  wine  and  music  included. 

It  was  a  fortnight  later  that  we  paid  our  visit  to 
Frascati,  not  proudly  motoring  now,  but  traversing  the 
Campagna  on  the  roof  of  a  populous  tram-car,  which 
in  its  lofty  narrowness  was  of  the  likeness  of  an  old- 
fashionable  lake  propeller.  The  morning  was,  like  most 
other  mornings  in  Rome,  of  an  amiability  which  the 
afternoons  often  failed  of;  but  none  of  us  passengers 
for  Frascati  doubted  its  promise  as  we  gathered  at 
the  tram-station  and  tried  for  tickets  at  the  little  booth 
in  a  wall  sparely  containing  the  official  who  bade  us 
get  them  in  the  car.  We  all  did  this,  whatever  our 
nation — American,  English,  German,  or  Italian — and 
then  we  mounted  to  the  hurricane-deck  of  our  pro 
peller  and  entered  into  a  generous  rivalry  for  the  best 
seats.  We  had  a  roof  over  our  heads,  and  there  were 
curtains  which  we  mi^ht  have  drawn  if  we  could  have 
borne  to  lose  a  single  glimpse  of  the  landscape,  or  if 
we  would  not  rather  have  suffered  the  chill  which  our 

214 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

swift  progress  evoked  from  the  morning's  warmth  after 
we  left  the  shelter  of  the  city  streets.  We  passed 
through  stretches  of  the  ancient  aqueducts  consorting 
on  familiar  terms  with  rows  of  shabby  tenement- 
houses,  and  whisked  by  the  ends  of  wide,  dusty  avenues 
of  yet  incomplete  structure,  and  by  beds  of  market-gar 
dens,  and  by  simple  feeding-places  for  man  and  beast, 
with  the  tables  set  close  in  front  of  the  stalls.  An 
ambitiously  frescoed  casino  had  a  gigantic  peacock 
painted  over  a  whole  story,  and  the  peach-trees  were  in 
bloom  in  the  villa  spaces.  When  we  struck  into  the 
Campagna  we  found  it  of  like  physiognomy  with  the 
Campagna  toward  Tivoli. 

There  was  very  little  tillage,  but  wide  stretches  of 
grazing  -  land,  with  those  lumps  of  turfed  or  naked 
antiquity  starting  out  of  them,  and  cattle,  sheep,  and 
horses  feeding  over  them,  the  colts'  tails  blowing  pict 
uresquely  in  the  wind  that  seemed  more  and  more  op 
posed  to  our  advance.  It  dropped,  at  times,  where  we 
paused  to  leave  a  passenger  near  one  of  those  suburbs 
which  the  tram-lines  are  building  up  round  Rome,  but 
on  our  course  building  so  slowly  that  our  passengers 
had  to  walk  rather  far  from  the  stations  before  they 
reached  home.  There  were  other  pedestrians  who  look 
ed  rather  English,  especially  some  ladies  making  for 
the  gate  of  a  kind,  sunny  walled  old  villa,  where  there 
was  a  girl  singing  and  a  gardener  coming  slowly  down 
to  let  them  in.  Nearer  Frascati  were  many  neat,  new 
stone  houses,  where  Roman  families  come  out  to  stay 
the  spring  and  fall  seasons,  and  even  the  summer.  But 
these  looked  too  freshly  like  the  suburban  cottages  on 
a  Boston  trolley  -  line ;  and  we  perversely  found  our 
delight  in  a  fine  breadth  of  brown  woods  for  the  very 
reason  of  that  homelikeness  which  gave  us  pause  in 

the  houses.     The  trees  looked  American;  there  were 

215 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

American  wood  -  roads  penetrating  the  forest's  broken 
and  irregular  extent;  there  was  one  steep-sided  ravine 
worth  any  man's  American  money ;  and  the  dead  leaves 
littered  the  sylvan  paths  with  an  allure  to  the  foot 
which  it  was  hard  for  the  head  to  resist. 

Elsewhere  the  tram-line  that  curved  upward  to  Fras- 
cati  was  flanked,  after  it  left  the  Campagna's  level,  with 
vineyards  as  measureless  as  the  olive  orchards  of  Tivoli. 
There  was  yet,  at  the  end  of  March,  no  sign  of  leaf 
on  the  newly  trimmed  vines,  which  were  trained  on 
long  poles  of  canes  brought  together  in  peaks  to  support 
them  and  netting  the  hill-slopes  with  the  endless  suc 
cession  of  their  tops.  The  eye  wearied  itself  in  fol 
lowing  them  as  in  following  the  checkered  wiring  of 
the  Kentish  hop-fields,  and  was  glad  to  leave  them  for 
the  closer  -  set,  but  never  too  closely  set,  palaces  of 
Frascati :  the  sort  of  palaces  which  we  call  cottages  in 
our  summer  cities,  and  the  Italians  call  casinos  from 
the  same  instinctive  modesty.  When  we  began  to  doubt 
of  our  destination,  our  car  passed  a  long,  shaded  prom 
enade,  and  then  stopped  in  a  cheerful  square  amidst 
hotels  and  restaurants,  with  tables  hospitably  spread  on 
the  sidewalks  before  them. 

We  decided  not  to  lunch  at  that  early  hour,  but  we 
could  not  keep  our  eyes  from  feasting,  even  at  eleven 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  on  the  wonderful  prospect  that 
tempted  them,  on  every  hand,  away  from  the  more  im 
mediate  affair  of  choosing  one  out  of  the  many  cabs 
that  thronged  about  our  arriving  train.  The  cabs  of 
Frascati  are  all  finer  than  the  cabs  of  Rome,  and  the 
horses  are  handsomer  and  younger  and  stronger;  we 
could  have  taken  the  worst  of  the  equipages  that  con 
tested  our  favor  and  still  fared  well ;  but  we  chose  the 
best  —  a  glittering  victoria  and  an  animal  of  proud 

action,  with  a  lustrous  coat  of  bay.     He  wore  a  ring 

216 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

of  joyous  bells;  he  had,  indeed,  not  a  headstall  of 
such  gay  colors  as  some  others;  but  you  cannot  have 
everything,  and  his  driver  was  of  a  mental  vividness 
which  compensated  for  all  the  color  wanting  in  his 
horse's  headstall,  and  of  a  personal  attraction  which 
made  us  ambitious  for  his  company  on  any  terms.  He 
quickly  reduced  us  from  our  vain  supposition  that  car 
riages  in  a  country-place  should  be  cheaper  than  in  a 
city;  because,  as  he  proved,  there  were  fewer  strangers 
to  hire  them  and  they  ought  logically  to  be  dearer.  So 
far  from  accepting  our  modest  standards  of  time  and 
money,  he  all  but  persuaded  us  to  employ  him  for  the 
whole  day  instead  of  a  few  hours  at  a  price  beyond  our 
imagination;  and  he  only  consented  to  compromise  on 
a  half-day  at  an  increased  figure. 

We  supposed  that  it  was  the  negotiation  which  drew 
and  held  the  attention  of  all  the  leisure  of  Frascati, 
and  that  it  was  the  driver  and  our  relation  to  him 
rather  than  the  horse  and  our  relation  to  it  that  con 
centrated  the  public  interest  in  us;  and  when  we  had 
convinced  him  that  we  had  no  wish  but  to  see  some 
of  the  more  immediate  and  memorable  villas,  we 
mounted  to  our  places  in  the  victoria  and  drove  out 
through  the  reluctantly  parting  spectators,  who  re 
mained  looking  after  us  as  if  unable  to  disperse  to 
their  business  or  pleasure. 

Our  driver  decided  for  us  to  go  first  to  the  Villa 
Falconieri,  which  had  lately  been  bought  and  pre 
sented  by  a  fond  subject  to  the  German  Emperor,  and 
by  him  in  turn  bestowed  on  the  German  Academy  at 
Rome.  In  the  cold,  clean,  stony  streets  of  Frascati, 
as  we  rattled  through  them,  there  breathed  the  odor  of 
the  great  local  industry;  and  the  doorways  of  many 
buildings,  widening  almost  in  a  circle  to  admit  the 
burly  tuns  of  wine,  testified  how  generally,  how  almost 

217 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

universally,  the  vintage  of  that  measureless  acreage 
of  grapes  around  the  place  employed  the  inhabitants. 
But  there  was  little  else  to  impress  the  observer  in 
Frascati,  and  we  willingly  passed  out  of  the  town  in 
the  road  climbing  the  long  incline  to  the  Villa  Fal 
conieri,  with  its  glimpses,  far  and  near,  of  woods  and 
gardens.  It  was  a  road  so  much  to  our  minds  that 
nothing  was  further  from  us  than  the  notion  that  our 
horse  might  not  like  it  so  well ;  but,  at  the  first  distinct 
rise,  he  stopped  and  wheeled  round  so  abruptly,  after 
first  pawing  the  air,  that  there  could  be  no  doubt  where 
the  popular  interest  we  had  lately  enjoyed  in  Frascati 
had  really  originated.  Probably  our  horse's  distin 
guishing  trait  was  known  to  everybody  in  Frascati 
except  his  driver.  He,  at  least,  showed  the  greatest 
surprise  at  the  horse's  behavior,  as  unprecedented  in 
their  acquaintance,  which  he  owned  was  brief,  for  he 
had  bought  him  in  Rome  only  the  week  before.  With 
successive  retreats  to  level  ground  he  put  him  again 
and  again  at  the  incline,  but  as  soon  as  the  horse  felt 
the  ground  rising  under  his  feet  he  lifted  them  from 
it  and  whirled  round  for  another  retreat.  All  this  we 
witnessed  from  an  advantageous  point  at  the  roadside 
which  we  had  taken  up  at  his  first  show  of  reluctance ; 
and  at  last  the  driver  suggested  that  we  should  leave 
it  and  go  on  to  the  Villa  Falconieri  on  foot.  On  our 
part,  we  suggested  that  he  should  attempt  some  other 
villa  which  would  not  involve  an  objectionable  climb. 
He  then  proposed  the  Villa  Mandragone,  and  tho  horse 
seemed  to  agree  with  us.  As  we  drove  again  through 
the  clean,  cold,  stony  streets,  with  the  rounded  door 
ways  for  the  wine-casks,  we  fancied  something  clearly 
ironical  in  the  general  interest  renewed  by  our  return. 
But  we  tried  to  look  as  if  we  had  merely  done  the  Villa 
Falconieri  with  unexampled  rapidity,  and  pushed  on 

218 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

'-'-*      '"I 


BO  MAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

to  the  Villa  Mandragone,  where,  under  the  roof  of 
interlacing  ilex  boughs,  our  horse  ought  to  have  been 
tempted  on  in  a  luxurious  unconsciousness  of  anything 
like  an  incline.  But  he  was  apparently  an  animal 
which  would  have  felt  the  difference  between  two  rose- 
leaves  and  one  in  a  flowery  path,  and  just  when  we 
were  thinking  what  a  delightful  time  we  were  having, 
and  beginning  to  feel  a  gentle  question  as  to  who  the 
pathetic  little  cripple  halting  toward  us  with  a  color- 
box  and  a  camp-stool  might  be,  and  whether  she  painted 
as  well  as  a  kind  heart  could  wish,  our  horse  stopped 
with  the  suddenness  which  we  knew  to  be  definite. 
The  sensitive  creature  could  not  be  deceived;  he  must 
have  reached  rising  ground,  and  we  sided  with  him 
against  our  driver,  who  would  have  pretended  it  was 
fancy. 

It  was  now  noon,  and  we  drove  back  to  the  piazza, 
agreeing  upon  a  less  price  in  view  of  the  imperfect 
service  rendered,  and  deciding  to  collect  our  thoughts 
for  a  new  venture  over  such  luncheon  as  the  best  hotel 
could  give  us.  It  was  not  so  good  a  hotel  as  the  lunch 
it  gave.  It  was  beyond  the  cleansing  tide  of  modernity 
which  has  swept  the  "Roman  hotels,  and  was  dirty 
everywhere,  but  with  a  specially  dirty,  large,  shabby 
dining-room,  cold  and  draughty,  yet  precious  for  the 
large,  round  brazier  near  our  table  which  kept  one  side 
of  us  warm  in  romantic  mediaeval  fashion,  and  invited 
us  to  rise  from  time  to  time  and  thaw  our  fingers  over 
its  blinking  coals.  The  bath  in  which  our  chicken  had 
been  boiled  formed  a  good  soup;  there  was  an  ad 
mirable  pasta  and  a  creditable,  if.  imperfect,  concep 
tion  of  beefsteak;  and  there  was  a  caraffe  of  new 
Frascati  wine,  sweet,  like  new  cider.  If  we  could  have 
asked  more,  it  would  not  have  been  more  than  the  young 
Italian  officer  who  sat  in  the  other  corner  with  his 

219 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

pretty  young  wife,  and  who  allowed  me  to  weave  a 
whole  realtistic  fiction  out  of  their  being  at  Frascati 
so  out  of  season. 

Just  as  I  was  most  satisfyingly  accounting  for  them, 
our  late  driver  alarmed  me  by  appearing  at  the  door 
and  beckoning  me  to  the  outside.  The  occasion  was 
nothing  worse  than  the  presence  of  a  man  who,  he  said, 
was  his  brother,  with  a  horse  which,  upon  the  same 
authority,  was  without  moral  blame  or  physical  blem 
ish.  If  anything,  it  preferred  a  mountain  to  a  plain 
country,  and  could  be  warranted  to  balk  at  nothing. 
The  man,  who  was  almost  as  exemplary  as  the  horse, 
would  assume  the  unfulfilled  contract  of  the  other  man 
and  horse  with  a  slight  increase  of  pay;  and  yet  I  had 
my  doubts.  The  day  had  clouded,  and  I  meekly  con 
tended  that  it  was  going  to  rain;  but  the  man  ex 
plicitly  and  the  horse  tacitly  scoffed  at  the  notion,  and 
I  yielded.  I  shall  always  be  glad  that  I  did  so,  for 
in  the  keeping  of  those  good  creatures  the  rest  of  our 
day  was  an  unalloyed  delight.  It  appeared,  upon 
further  acquaintance,  that  the  man  paid  a  hundred 
dollars  for  the  horse;  his  brother  had  paid  a  hundred 
and  twenty-five  for  the  balker;  but  it  was  the  belief 
of  our  driver  that  it  would  be  worth  the  difference 
when  it  had  reconciled  itself  to  the  rising  ground  of 
Frascati;  as  yet  it  was  truly  a  stranger  there.  His 
own  horse  was  used  to  ups  and  downs  everywhere ;  they 
had  just  come  from  a  long  trip,  and  he  was  going  to 
drive  to  Siena  and  back  the  next  week  with  two  ladies 
for  passengers,  who  were  to  pay  him  five  dollars  a  day 
for  himself  and  horse  and  their  joint  keep.  He  said 
the  ladies,  whose  names  he  gave,  were  from  Boston ; 
he  balked  at  adding  Massachusetts,  but  I  am  sure  the 
horse  would  not;  and,  if  I  could  have  hired  them  both 
to  carry  me  about  Italy  indefinitely,  I  would  have 

220 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

gladly  paid  them  five  dollars  a  day  as  long  as  I  had 
the  money.  The  fact  is,  that  driver  was  charming,  a 
man  of  sense  and  intelligence,  who  reflected  credit  even 
upon  his  brother  and  his  brother's  horse:  one  of  those 
perfect  Italian  temperaments  which  endear  their  pos 
sessors  to  the  head  and  heart,  so  that  you  wonder,  at 
parting,  how  you  are  going  to  live  without  them. 

We  did  not  excite  such  vivid  interest  in  Frascati  at 
our  second  start  as  at  our  first;  but,  as  we  necessarily 
passed  over  the  same  route  again,  we  had  the  applause 
of  the  children  in  streets  now  growing  familiar,  and 
a  glad  welcome  back  from  the  pretty  girls  .and  blithe 
matrons  of  all  ages  rhythmically  washing  in  the  pub 
lic  laundry,  who  recognized  us  in  our  new  equipage. 
The  public  laundry  is  always  the  gayest  scene  in  an 
Italian  town,  and  probably  our  adventures  continued 
the  subject  of  joyous  comment  throughout  the  day 
which  was  now  passing  only  too  rapidly  for  us.  We 
were  again  on  the  way  to  the  Villa  Falconieri,  and 
while  our  brave  horse  is  valiantly  mounting  the  steep 
to  its  gate  this  is  perhaps  as  good  a  place  as  any  to 
own  that  the  Villa  Falconieri  and  the  Villa  Man- 
dragone  were  the  only  sights  we  saw  in  Frascati.  We 
did,  indeed,  penetrate  the  chill  interior  of  the  local 
cathedral,  but  as  we  did  not  know  at  the  time  that 
we  were  sharing  it  with  the  memory  of  the  young- 
Stuart  pretender  Charles  Edward,  who  died  in  Fras 
cati,  and  whose  brother,  Cardinal  York,  placed  a 
mural  tablet  to  him  in  the  church,  we  were  conscious 
of  no  special  claim  upon  our  interest.  We  ought,  of 
course,  to  have  visited  the  Villa  Aldobrandini  and  the 
Villa  Ruffinella  and  the  Villa  Graziola  and  the  Villa 
Taverna,  but  we  left  all  these  to  the  reader,  who  will 
want  some  reason  for  going  to  Frascati  in  person,  and 
to  whom  I  commend  them  as  richly  worth  crossing  the 

221 


EOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEKS 

Atlantic  for.  Doubtless  from  a  like  motive  we  left  the 
ruins  of  Tusculum  un visited,  just  as  at  Tivoli  we  re 
frained  from  diverging  to  Hadrian's  Villa  —  the  two 
things  supremely  worthy  to  be  seen  in  their  respective 
regions.  But,  if  I  had  seen  only  half  as  much  as  I 
saw  at  Frascati  —  the  Villa  Falconieri,  namely  —  I 
should  feel  forever  over-enriched  by  the  experience. 

Slowly  an  ancient  servitor,  whose  family  had  been 
in  the  employ  of  the  Falconieri  for  a  century,  advanced 
as  with  the  burden  of  their  united  years  and  opened  the 
high  gate  to  us  and  delivered  us  over  to  a  mild  boy. 
He  bestowed  on  us,  for  a  consideration,  a  bunch  of  wild 
violets,  and  then,  as  if  to  keep  us  from  the  too  abrupt 
sight  of  the  repairs  and  changes  going  on  near  the 
casino,  led  us  first  to  the  fish-pond,  in  the  untouched 
seclusion  of  a  wooded  hill,  and  silently  showed  us  the 
magnificent  view  which  the  top  commanded,  if  com 
manded  is  not  too  proud  a  word  for  a  place  so  pathetic 
in  its  endearing  neglect.  It  had  once  been  the  haunt 
of  many  a  gay  picnicking  crew  in  hoops  and  bag-wigs 
and  all  the  faded  fashion  of  the  past,  when  hosts  and 
guests  had  planned  a  wilder  escapade  than  the  grove 
before  the  casino  invited,  with  its  tables  of  moss-painted 
marble.  There  would  have  been  an  academic  poet,  or 
more  than  one,  in  the  company,  and  they  would  have 
furnished  forth  the  prospect  with  phrases  far  finer  than 
any  I  have  about  me,  who  can  only  say  that  the  Cam- 
pagna,  clothed  in  mist  and  cloud-shadowed,  swam  round 
the  upland  in  the  colors  of  a  tropic  sea. 

Our  mild  boy  waited  a  decent  moment,  as  if  to  let 
me  do  better,  and  then  led  down  to  the  casino,  round 
through  a  wooded  valley  where  there  were  some  men 
with  fowling-pieces,  whom  I  objected  to  in  tones,  if  not 
in  terms.  "  What  are  they  shooting  ?"  "  They  are 
shooting  larks,  signore."  "  What  a  pity !"  "  But  the 

222 


OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 

Of 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

larks  are  leaving  Italy,  now,  and  going  north."  It  was 
a  reason,  like  many  another  that  humanity  is  put  to  it 
in  giving,  and  I  do  not  know  that  I  missed  any  larks, 
later,  from  an  English  meadow  where  I  saw  them  spir 
ing  up  in  song,  and  glad  as  if  none  of  their  friends  had 
been  shot  at  the  Villa  Palconieri.  In  fact,  I  did  not 
see  those  fowlers  actually  killing  any;  and  I  can  still 
hope  they  were  not  very  good  shots. 

The  workmen  who  were  putting  the  place  in  repair 
were  lunching  near  the  casino,  in  a  litter  of  lumber  and 
other  structural  material,  but  the  casino  itself  seemed 
as  yet  unprofaned  by  their  touch.  At  any  rate,  we  had 
it  quite  to  ourselves,  let  wander  at  will  through  its 
cool,  bare,  still  spaces.  If  there  was  a  great  deal  to 
see,  there  was  not  much  to  remember,  or  to  remember 
so  much  as  the  satirical  frescos  of  Pier  Leone  Ghezzi, 
who  has  caricatured  himself  as  well  as  others  in  them. 
They  are  not  bitter  satires,  but,  on  the  contrary,  very 
charming;  and  still  more  charming  are  the  family 
portraits  frescoed  round  the  principal  room.  Under 
one  curve  of  the  vaulted  ceiling  the  whole  family  of 
a  given  time  is  shown,  half-length  but  life-size,  look 
ing  down  pleasantly  on  the  unexpected  American  guests 
who  try  to  pretend  they  were  invited,  or  at  least  came 
by  mistaking  the  house  for  another.  Better  even  than 
this  most  amiable  circle,  or  half  -  circle,  of  father, 
mother,  and  daughter  are  the  figures  of  friends  or 
acquaintances  or  kinsfolk:  figures  not  only  life-size, 
but  full-length,  in  panels  of  the  walls,  in  the 
very  act  of  stepping  on  the  floor  and  coming  forward 
to  greet  their  host  and  hostess  from  the  other  walls. 
They  did  not  visibly  move  during  our  stay,  but  I  know 
they  only  waited  for  us  to  go;  and  that  at  night,  es 
pecially  when  there  was  a  moon,  or  none,  they  left  their 
backgrounds  and  mingled  in  the  polite  gayeties  of  their 

223 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

period.  One  could  hardly  help  looking  over  one's 
shoulder  to  see  if  they  were  not  following  to  that 
farthermost  room  called  Prim  aver  a,  which  is  painted 
around  and  aloft  like  a  very  bower  of  spring,  with 
foliage  and  flowers  covering  the  walls  and  dropping 
through  the  trellis  feigned  overhead.  Of  all  the  ca 
prices  of  art,  which  in  Italy  so  loved  caprice,  I  recall 
no  such  pleasing  playfulness  as  in  the  decoration  of 
these  rooms.  If  you  pass  through  the  last  you  may 
look  from  the  spring  within  on  no  fairer  spring  without 
bordering  the  shores  of  the  Campagna  sea. 

It  was  so  pathetic  to  imagine  the  place  going  out 
of  the  right  Italian  keeping  that  I  attributed  a  re 
sponsive  sadness  to  the  tall,  handsome,  elderly  woman 
who  had  allowed  us  the  freedom  of  the  casino.  Her 
faded  beauty  was  a  little  sallow,  as  the  faded  beauty 
of  a  Roman  matron  should  be,  and  her  large,  dark 
eyes  glowed  from  purpling  shadows. 

"  And  the  German  Emperor  owns  it  now  ?" 

"  Yes,  they  say  he  has  bought  it." 

"  And  the  Germans  will  soon  be  coming  ?" 

"  They  say." 

She  would  not  commit  herself  but  by  a  tone,  an  in 
flection,  but  we  knew  very  well  what  she  and  the  fres 
coed  presences  about  us  thought.  I  wish  now  I  could 
have  stayed  behind  and  got  the  frescos  to  tell  me  just 
how  far  I  ought  recognize  her  sorrow  in  my  tip,  but 
one  must  always  guess  at  these  things,  and  I  shall  never 
know  whether  I  rewarded  the  aged  gatekeeper  accord 
ing  to  the  century  of  service  his  generations  had  ren 
dered  those  of  the  frescos. 

We  were  going  now  to  the  Villa  Mandragone,  but 
we  had  not  yet  the  courage  for  the  rise  of  ground 
where  we  had  failed  before,  and  we  entreated  our 

driver  to  go  round  some  other  way,  if  he  could,  and 

224 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

descend  rather  than  ascend  to  it.  He  said  that  was 
easy,  and  it  was  when  we  came  away  that  we  passed 
through  that  ilex  avenue  which  we  had  not  yet  pene 
trated  in  its  whole  length,  and  where  we  now  met  many 
foot-passengers,  lay  and  cleric,  who  added  to  the  char 
acter  of  the  scene,  and  saw  again  the  little  cripple 
artist,  now  trying  to  seize  its  features,  or  some  of 
them.  I  did  not  see  whether  she  was  succeeding  so 
well  as  in  pity  she  might  and  as  I  knew  she  did. 

In  spite  of  our  triumph  with  the  Villa  Mandragone 
in  this  second  attempt,  we  can  never  think  it  half 
as  charming  as  the  Villa  Falconieri.  I  forget  what 
cardinal  it  was  who  built  it  so  spacious  and  splen 
did,  with  three  hundred  and  sixty  -  five  windows,  in 
honor  of  the  calendar  as  reformed  by  the  reigning  pope, 
Gregory  XIII.  It  is  a  palace  enclosing  a  quadrangle 
of  whole  acres  (I  will  not  own  to  less),  with  a  stately 
colonnade  following  as  far  round  as  the  reader  likes. 
When  he  passes  through  all  this  magnificence  he  will 
come  out  on  a  grassy  terrace,  with  a  fountain  below  it, 
and  below  that  again  the  chromatic  ocean  of  the  Cam- 
pagna  (I  have  said  sea  often  enough).  A  weird  sort  of 
barbaric  stateliness  is  given  to  the  place  by  the  twisted 
and  tapering  pillars  that  rise  at  the  several  corners, 
with  colossal  masques  carven  at  the  top  and  the  sky 
showing  through  the  eye-hollows,  as  the  flame  of  torches 
must  often  have  shown  at  night.  But  for  all  the  out 
landish  suggestion  of  these  pillars,  the  villa  now  belongs 
to  the  Jesuits,  who  have  a  college  there,  where  only 
the  sons  of  noble  families  are  received  for  education. 
As  we  rounded  a  sunny  wall  in  driving  away,  we  saw 
a  line  of  people,  old  and  young  of  both  sexes,  but  prob 
ably  not  of  noble  families,  seated  with  their  backs 
against  the  warm  stone  eating  from  comfortable  bowls 
a  soup  which  our  driver  said  was  the  soup  of  charity 
15  225 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

and  the  daily  dole  of  the  fathers  to  such  hungry  as 
came  for  it.  The  day  was  now  growing  colder  than 
it  had  been,  and  we  felt  that  the  poor  needed  all  the 
soup,  and  hot,  that  they  could  get. 

After  a  vain  visit  to  Grotta  Ferrata,  which  was  sig 
nally  disappointing,  in  spite  of  the  traces  of  a  recent 
country  fair  and  the  historical  merits  of  a  church  of 
the  Greek  rite,  with  a  black-bearded  monk  coming  to 
show  it  through  a  gardened  cloister,  we  were  glad  to 
take  the  tram  back  to  Rome  and  to  get  into  the  snug 
inside  of  it.  The  roof,  which  had  been  so  popular  and 
populous  in  the  morning,  was  now  so  little  envied  that 
a  fat  lady  descended  from  it  and  wedged  herself  into 
a  row  of  the  interior  where  a  sylph  would  have  fitted 
better  but  might  not  have  added  so  much  to  the  warmth. 
No  one,  myself  of  the  number,  thought  of  getting  up, 
though  there  were  plenty  of  straps  to  hang  by  if  one 
had  chosen  to  stand.  This  was  quite  like  home,  and  so 
was  it  like  home  to  have  the  conductor  ask  me  to 
wait  for  my  change,  with  all  the  ensuing  fears  that 
wronged  the  long  -  delayed  remembrance  of  his  debt. 
In  some  things  it  appears  that  at  Rome  the  Romans 
do  as  the  Americans  do,  but  I  wish  we  were  like  them 
in  having  such  a  place  as  Frascati  within  easy  tram- 
reach  of  our  cities. 


xv 
A    FEW    REMAINING   MOMENTS 

In  the  days  of  the  earlier  sixties,  we  youth  who 
wished  to  be  thought  elect  did  not  feel  ourselves  so 
unless  we  were  deeply  read  in  Hawthorne's  romance 
of  The  Marble  Faun.  We  made  that  our  aesthetic  hand 
book  in  Rome,  and  we  devoutly  looked  up  all  the  places 

226 


THE    MARBLE    FAUN 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

mentioned  in  it,  which  were  important  for  being  men 
tioned;  though  such  places  as  the  Tarpeian  Rock,  the 
Forum,  the  Capitoline  Museum,  and  the  Villa  Bor- 
ghese  might  secondarily  have  their  historical  or  artistic 
interest.  In  like  manner  Story's  statue  of  Cleopatra 
was  to  be  seen,  because  it  was  the  "  original "  of  the 
imaginary  sculptor  Kenyon's  Cleopatra,  and  a  certain 
mediaeval  tower  was  sacred  because  it  was  universally 
identified  as  the  tower  where  the  heroine  Hilda  lived 
dreaming  and  drawing,  and  fed  the  doves  that  circled 
around  its  top.  We  used  to  show  the  new  arrivals 
where  Hilda's  tower  was,  and  then  stand  with  them 
watching  the  pigeons  which  made  it  unmistakable.  I 
should  then  have  thought  I  could  never  forget  it,  but 
I  must  have  passed  it  several  times  unnoting  in  my 
latest  Roman  sojourn,  when  one  afternoon  in  a  pil 
grimage  to  the  Via  del  Gambero  a  contemporary  of  that  \ 
earlier  day  glanced  around  the  narrow  piazza  through 
which  we  were  passing  and,  seeing  a  cloud  of  doves 
wheeling  aloft,  joyfully  shouted,  "  Look  1  There  is 
Hilda's  tower!"  and  if  Hilda  herself  had  waved  to 
us  from  its  battlements  we  could  not  have  been  surer 
of  it.  The  present  vanished,  and  we  were  restored  to 
our  citizenship  in  that  Rome  of  the  imagination  which 
is  greater  than  any  material  Rome,  and  which  it  needs 
no  archaeologist  to  discover  in  its  indestructible  in 
tegrity. 

No  one  to-day,  probably,  visits  the  Capitoline  Mu-  f, 
seum  for  the  Faun  of  Praxiteles  because  it  gave  the 
romance  its  name;  but  at  my  latest  sight  of  it  I  re 
membered  it  with  a  thrill  of  the  young  piety  which 
first  drew  me  to  it,  and  involuntarily  I  looked  again 
for  the  pointed,  furry  ears,  as  I  had  done  of  old,  to 
make  sure  that  it  was  really  the  Marble  Faun  of  Haw 
thorne,  I  was  now,  however,  for  no  merit  of  mine,  in 

227 


EOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

official  and  scientific  company  with  which  it  would  have 
been  idle  to  share  my  satisfaction  in  the  verification 
of  the  Faun's  ears.  Instead  of  boasting  it,  I  listened 
to  very  interesting  talk  of  the  deathless  Dying  Glad 
iator,  who  is  held  to  have  been  originally  looked  at 
more  from  below  than  he  has  been  seen  in  modern 
times,  and  who  is  presently  to  be  lifted  to  something 
like  his  antique  level.  He,  in  fact,  requires  this  from 
the  spectator  who  would  feel  all  his  pathos,  as  we 
realized  in  sitting  down  and  looking  a  little  upward 
at  him. 

In  his  room  and  in  the  succession  of  the  rooms  filled 
with  his  immortal  bronze  and  marble  companions  I 
was  as  if  with  ghosts  of  people  I  had  known  in  some 
anterior  life.  They  were  so  familiar  that  I  felt  no 
need  to  go  about  asking  their  names,  even  if  the  archae 
ologists  had  in  several  cases  given  them  new  names. 
I  should  have  known  certain  of  them  by  traits  which 
remain  in  the  memory  long  after  names  have  dropped 
out  of  it.  Julius  Caesar,  with  his  long  Celtic  upper- 
lip,  still  looked  like  the  finer  sort  of  Irish-American 
politician;  Tiberius  again  surprised  me  with  the  sort 
of  racial  sanity  and  beauty  surviving  in  his  atrocious 
personality  from  his  mother's  blood ;  but  the  too  ~Ne- 
ronian  head  of  Nero,  which  seems  to  have  been  studied 
from  the  wild  young  miscreant  when  trying  to  look 
the  part,  had  an  unremembered  effect  of  chubby  idiocy. 
A  thing  that  freshly  struck  me  in  the  busts  of  those 
imperialities,  which  of  course  must  have  been  done  in 
their  lifetimes,  was  not  merely  that  the  subjects  were 
mostly  so  ugly  and  evil  but  that  the  artists  were  ap 
parently  safe  in  showing  them  so.  The  men  might 
not  have  minded  that,  but  how  had  the  sculptors  man 
aged  to  portray  the  women  as  they  did  and  live  ?  Per 
haps  they  did  not  live,  or  live  long;  they  are  a  forgotten 

228 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

tribe,  and  no  one  can  say  what  became  of  any  given 
artist  after  executing  the  bust  of  an  empress;  his  own 
execution  may  have  immediately  followed.  But  what 
is  certain  is  that  those  ladies  are  no  lovelier  in  their 
looks  than  they  were  in  their  lives ;  to  be  sure,  in  their 
rank  they  had  not  so  great  need  of  personal  charm  as 
women  of  the  lower  class.  The  most  touching  face  as 
well  as  the  most  dignified  and  beautiful  face  among 
them  is  that  of  the  seated  figure  which  used  to  be 
known  as  that  of  Agrippina  but  which,  known  now  as 
that  of  a  Eoman  matron,  does  not  relieve  the  imperial 
average  of  plainness.  The  rest  could  rival  the  average 
American  society  woman  only  in  the  prevailing  mod 
ernity  of  their  expression;  imperial  Rome  was  very 
modern,  as  we  all  know,  and  nothing  in  our  own  time 
could  be  more  up  to  date  than  the  lives  and  looks  of  its 
smart  people. 

The  general  impression  of  the  other  marbles  of  the 
Capitoline  Museum  remains  a  composite  of  standing, 
sitting,  stooping,  and  leaning  figures,  of  urns  and  vases, 
of  sarcophaguses  and  bas-reliefs.  If  you  can  be  defi 
nite  about  some  such  delightful  presence  as  that  old 
River  dozing  over  his  fountain  in  the  little  cold  court 
you  see  first  and  last  as  you  come  and  go,  it  is  more 
than  your  reader,  if  he  is  as  wise  as  you  wish  him, 
can  ask  of  you.  I  have  been  wondering  whether  he 
could  profitably  ask  of  me  some  record  of  my  experi 
ences  in  the  official  and  scientific  company  with  which 
I  was  honored  that  day  at  the  Campidoglio;  but  I 
should  have  to  offer  him  again  a  sort  of  composite 
psychograph  of  objects  printed  one  upon  another  and 
hardly  separable  in  their  succession.  There  would  be 
the  figure  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  commanding  us  with  out 
stretched  arm  from  the  back  of  the  bronze  charger  which 

would  not  obey  Michelangelo  when  he  bade  it  "  Go," 

"229 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

not  because  it  was  not  lifelike,  but  because  it  was  too 
fat  to  move.  Against  the  afternoon  sky,  looking  down 
into  the  piazza  with  dreamy  unconcern  from  their  van 
tage  would  be  the  statues  on  the  balustrated  roof  of  the 
museum.  There  would  be  the  sense,  rather  than  the 
vision,  of  the  white  shoulders  of  Castor  and  Pollux  be 
side  their  steeds  above  the  dark-green  garden  spaces  on 
either  hand ;  there  would  be  the  front  of  the  Church  of 
Ara  Coeli  visible  beyond  the  insignificance  of  Rienzi's 
monument;  and  filling  in  the  other  end  of  the  piazza 
which  Michelangelo  imagined,  and  not  the  Romans 
knew,  there  would  be  the  palace  of  the  senator,  to 
which  the  mayor  and  the  common  council  of  modern 
Rome  now  mount  by  a  double  stairway,  and  presum 
ably  meet  at  the  top  in  proceeding  to  their  municipal 
labors.  Facing  the  museum  would  be  the  palace  of  the 
Conservatori,  where  in  the  noblest  of  its  splendid  halls 
the  present  company  would  find  itself  in  the  carved 
and  gilded  arm-chairs  of  the  conservators,  seated  at  an 
afternoon  tea-table  and  restoring  itself  from  the  fa 
tigues  of  more  and  more  antique  art  in  the  galleries 
about.  After  this  there  would  be  the  gardened  court 
of  the  palace,  with  a  thin  lawn,  and  a  soft  little 
fountain  musing  in  the  midst  of  it,  and  the  sunset 
light  lifting  on  the  wall  where  the  fragments  of  Sep- 
timius  Severus's  marble  map  of  Rome  order  them 
selves  in  such  coherence  as  archeology  can  suggest 
for  them. 

In  the  palace  of  the  Senator  (who  was  not,  as  I  dare 
say  the  reader  ignorantly  supposes,  a  residuum  of  the 
old  Roman  senate,  but  was  the  dictator  whom  the 
mediaeval  republic  summoned  from  within  or  with 
out  to  be  its  head  and  its  safeguard  from  the  aristoc 
racy)  there  would  be,  beyond  the  chamber  where  the 
actual  city  council  of  Rome  meets  under  the  presidency 

230 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

of  the  mayor,  the  great  public  rooms  bannered  and 
memorialled  around  with  heroic  and  historic  blazons; 
arid  last  there  would  be  the  private  room  where  the 
syndic  devotes  himself  to  civic  affairs  when  he  can 
turn  from  the  sight  of  the  Koman  Forum,  with  a 
peripatetic  archaBologist  lecturing  a  group  of  earnest 
Americans,  while  long,  velvety  shadows  of  imperial 
purple  stretch  from  the  sunset  on  the  softly  rounded 
and  hollowed  ruins  of  the  Palatine. 

But,  if  each  of  these  bare  facts  could  be  parted  from 
the  others  and  intelligently  presented,  what  would  it 
avail  with  the  reader  who  has  never  seen  the  originals 
of  my  psychograph?  It  is  from  some  such  question, 
and  not  from  want  of  a  hospitable  will,  that  I  hesitate 
to  ask  him  to  go  with  me  on  a  golden  morning  of 
March  and  spend  it  in  the  Villa  Medici  on  the  Pincian 
Hill.  If  I  could  I  should  like  to  pour  its  yellowness 
and  mellowness  round  him,  perfumed  with  a  potpourri 
of  associations  from  the  time  of  Lucullus  down  through 
every  medieval  and  modern  time  to  that  very  day,  when 
I  knew  Carolus  Duran  to  be  living  somewhere  in  these 
beauteous  bounds  as  the  head  of  the  French  Academy 
which  has  its  home  in  them.  The  academic  garden- 
paths,  with  a  few  happy  people  wandering  between 
their  correctly  balanced  passages  of  box;  the  blond 
facade  of  the  casino  looking  down  with  its  statues  and 
reliefs  on  these  parterres;  a  young  girl  vanishing  up 
an  aisle  of  the  grove  beside  the  garden  into  whatever 
dream  awaited  her  youth  in  the  leafy  dusk;  an  old 
American  pair  gazing  after  her  from  the  terrace,  with 
the  void  of  the  vanished  years  aching  in  their  hearts 
for  the  Rome  that  was  once  young  with  them :  does  this 
represent  to  the  reader  an  appreciable  morning  in  the 
Villa  Medici  ?  He  may  be  grateful  to  me  if  he  does, 
and  if  he  likes.  I  cannot  do  more  for  him  without 

231 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

doing  less,  and  yet  I  know  it  is  a  palette  rather  than  a 
picture  I  am  giving  him. 

All  the  while  I  was  there,  the  guest  of  the  French" 
nation  by  the  payment  of  fifty  centimes  gate-money,  I 
was  obscurely  resenting  its  retention  of  a  place  which 
Bonaparte  bestowed  upon  the  First  Kepublic  with  so 
much  other  loot  from  Italy.     But  now  I  have  lately 
heard  that  the  magnanimous  Third  Republic  is  going 
to  restore  it  to  the  people  rightfully  its  owners,  and 
the  remembrance  of  my  morning  in  the  Villa  Medici 
will  remain  a  pure  joy.     So  few  joys  in  this  world, 
even  in  the  very  capital  of  it,  are  without  some  touch 
of  abatement.     I  could  not  so  much  as  visit  the  Cata 
combs   of  Domatilla   without    suffering   a   frustration 
which,  though  incidental  merely,  left  a  lasting  pang  of 
unrequited  interest.     As  we  drew  toward  the  place,  I 
saw  in  a  field  the  beginning  of  one  of  those  domestic 
dramas    which    are    not    attributable    to    Italy    alone. 
Three   peasants,    a    man    and    two    women,    were    en 
gaged  in  controversy  which,  on  his  side,  the  man  sup 
ported  with  both  hands  flapping  wildly  at  the  heads  of 
the  women,  who  alertly  dodged  and  circled  around  him 
in  the  endeavor  to  close  in  upon  him.     It  was  instant 
ly  con jectur able,  if  not  apparent,  that  they  were  his 
wife  and  daughter,  and  that  he  was  the  worse  for  the 
vintage  of  their  home  acre,  and  would  be  the  better 
for  being  got  into  the  house  and  into  bed.     The  con 
jecture  enlisted  the  worthier  instincts  of  the  witness  on 
the  side  of  the  mother  and  daughter ;  but  he  was  in  no 
hurry  to  have  the  animated  action  brought  to  a  close, 
and  was  about  to  tell  his  cabman  to  drive  very,  very 
slowly,  when  suddenly  the  cab  descended  into  a  valley, 
and  when  the  eager  spectator  rose  to  his  former  level 
again  the  stone  wall  had  risen  with  him,  and  he  never 
knew  the  end  of  that  passage  of  real  life, 

232 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

It  was  impossible  to  bid  the  cabman  drive  back  for 
the  close  of  the  scene;  the  abrupt  conclusion  must  be 
accepted  as  final ;  but  it  is  proof  of  the  charm  I  found 
in  the  gentle  guide  who  presently  began  to  marshal 
us  among  the  paths  of  the  subterranean  sanctuary  and 
cemetery  that  for  the  moment  my  bitter  sense  of  loss 
was  assuaged,  and  it  only  returns  now  at  long  intervals. 
Such  as  the  woman  actors  in  this  brief  scene  were  some 
early  Christians  might  have  been,  and  it  must  have 
been  the  stubborn  old  pagan  spirit  I  saw  surviving  in 
the  husband  and  father.  He  was  probably  such  a  ves 
sel  of  wrath  as,  being  filled  with  Bacchus,  would  have 
lent  itself  to  the  persecuting  rage  of  Domitian  and 
helped  drive  the  emperor's  gentle  cousin  Domatilla  into 
the  exile  whence  she  returned  to  found  a  Christian 
cemetery  in  her  villa.  One  understands,  of  course, 
under  the  villa ;  for  the  catacombs  in  some  places  reach 
as  many  as  five  levels  below  the  surface.  I  will  not 
follow  the  reader  with  that  kind  guide  who  will  cheer 
his  wanderings  through  those  sunless  corridors  of  death, 
where  many  of  the  sleepers  still  lie  sealed  within  their 
tombs  on  either  hand,  and  show  him  by  the  smoky 
taper's  light  the  frescos  which  adorn  the  cramped 
chapels.  I  prefer  to  stand  at  the  top  of  the  entrance 
and  ask  him  if  he  noticed  how  the  artist  sometimes 
seemed  not  to  know  whether  he  was  pagan  or  Christian, 
and  did  not  mind,  for  instance,  putting  a  Mercury  at 
the  heads  of  the  horses  in  an  Ascent  of  Elijah.  Per 
haps  the  artist  was  really  a  pagan  and  thought  a  Greek 
god  as  good  as  a  Hebrew  prophet  any  day;  art  was 
probably  one  of  the  last  things  to  be  converted,  having 
a  presentiment  of  the  dark  and  bloody  themes  the  new 
religion  would  give  it  to  deal  with. 

The  earthy  scent  of  the  catacomb  will  cling  to  the 
reader's  clothes,  and  he  will  have  two  minds  about 

233 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

keeping  for  a  souvenir  the  taper  which  he  carried,  and 
which  the  guide  wraps  in  a  bit  of  newspaper  for  him ; 
he  may  prefer  the  flower  which  he  is  allowed  to  gather 
from  the  tiny  garden  at  the  entrance  to  the  catacombs. 
Yet  these  Catacombs  of  Domatilla  are  among  the  cheer- 
fulest  of  all  the  catacombs,  and  a  sense  of  something 
sweet  and  appealing  invests  them  from  the  memory 
of  the  gentle  lady  whose  piety  consecrated  them  as  the 
last  home  of  the  refugees  and  martyrs.  They  are  of 
the  more  recent  Roman  excavations,  but  I  do  not  know 
whether  later  or  earlier  than  those  which  have  revealed 
the  house  of  the  two  Christian  gentlemen,  John  and 
Paul,  of  unknown  surname,  where  they  suffered  death 
for  their  faith,  under  the  Passionist  church  named  for 
them.  Twenty-four  rooms  on  the  two  stories  have  been 
opened,  and  there  are  others  yet  to  be  opened;  when 
all  are  laid  bare  they  will  perfectly  show  what  a  Ro 
man  city  dwelling  of  the  better  sort  was  like  in  the 
mid-imperial  time.  The  plan  differs  from  that  of  the 
average  Pompeian  house  as  much  as  the  plan  of  a  cross- 
town  JSTew  York  dwelling  would  differ  from  that  of  the 
average  Newport  cottage.  The  rooms  are  incompar 
ably  smaller  than  those  of  the  mediaeval  palaces  of  the 
Roman  nobles,  and  the  decoration  is  sometimes  crudely 
mixed  of  pagan  and  Christian  themes  and  motives; 
the  artists,  like  the  painters  of  the  Domatilla  cata 
combs,  were  probably  lingering  in  the  old  Greek  tradi 
tion. 

The  young  Passionist  father  who  showed  us  through 
the  church  and  the  house  under  it  made  us  wait  half 
an  hour  while  he  finished  his  lunch,  but  he  was  worth 
waiting  for.  He  was  a  charming  enthusiast  for  both, 
radiantly  yet  reverently  exulting  in  their  respective 
treasures,  and  justly  but  not  haughtily  proud  of  the 
newly  introduced  electricity  which  lighted  the  darkness 

234 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

of  the  underground  rooms  and  corridors.  He  told  us 
he  had  been  twenty  years  a  missionary  in  Rumania, 
where  he  had  possibly  acquired  the  delightful  English 
he  spoke.  When  he  would  have  us  follow  him  he  said, 
"  All  persons  come  this  way,"  and  he  politely  spoke  of 
the  wicked  emperor  whose  bust  was  somehow  there  as 
Mr.  Commodus.  With  all  his  gentleness,  however, 
that  good  father  had  a  certain  smiling  severity  be 
fore  which  the  spirit  bowed.  He  had  made  us  wait 
half  an  hour  before  he  came  to  let  us  into  the  church, 
and  during  the  hour  we  were  with  him  there  he  kept 
the  door  locked  against  an  unlucky  lady  who  arrived 
just  too  late  to  enter  with  us.  Not  only  this,  but  he 
utterly  refused  to  go  back  with  her  singly  and  show 
her  the  things  we  had  seen.  Perhaps  it  would  not  have 
been  decorous;  they  do  not  let  ladies,  either  singly  or 
plurally,  into  the  garden  of  the  convent,  which  is  memo 
rable  among  many  other  facts  as  being  the  retreat  of 
Mr.  Commodus  when  he  suffered  from  sleeplessness, 
and  where  he  once  carelessly  left  his  list  of  victims 
lying  about,  so  that  his  friend  Marcia  found  it  and, 
reading  her  name  in  it,  joined  with  other  friends  in 
his  assassination.  The  sex  has  indeed  had  much  re 
straint  to  bear  from  the  Church,  but  in"  some  respects 
it  has  been  rendered  fearless  in  the  assertion  of  its 
rights.  With  poor  women  one  of  these  is  the  inde 
feasible  right  to  ask  alms,  and  I  admired  the  courage, 
almost  the  ferocity,  of  the  aged  crone  whom  I  had 
promised  charity  in  coming  to  the  place  and  who  rose 
up  as  I  was  being  driven  past  her,  in  going  away,  and 
stayed  my  cabman  with  a  clamor  which  he  dared  not 
ignore.  Her  reproaches  continued  through  the  ensuing 
transaction,  and  followed  him  away  with  stings  which 
instinct  and  experience  taught  her  how  to  implant  in 
his  tenderest  sensibilities. 

235 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

A  chapter  much  longer  than  any  I  have  written  here 
might  well  be  devoted  to  the  study  of  the  clerical  or 
secular  guides  in  the  minor  churches  of  Rlome.  They 
are  of  every  manner  and  degree  of  kindliness,  mixed 
with  a  fair  measure  of  intelligence  and  a  very  fitting 
faith  in  the  legends  of  their  churches.  You  soon  get  on 
terms  of  impersonal  intimacy  with  them,  and  you  can 
not  come  away  without  sharing  their  professional  zeal, 
and  distinguishing  for  the  moment  in  favor  of  their 
respective  churches  above  every  other.  It  did  not  mat 
ter  whether  it  was  that  newest  church  in  the  Quartiere 
dei  Prati,  or  that  most  venerable  among  the  oldest 
churches,  the  Church  of  San  Gregorio:  I  found  a  rea 
son  for  agreeing  with  the  sacristan  upon  its  singular 
claims.  These  were  especially  enforced  by  the  good 
dame,  the  only  woman  sacristan  I  remember,  who 
would  not  spare  us  a  single  object  of  interest  in  San 
Gregorio's,  which  is  indeed  for  the  visitor  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  supremely  rich  in  its  associations  with  the 
conversions  of  his  ancestors  from  heathenism. 

Being  myself  of  Cymric  blood,  and  of  a  Christianity 
several  hundred  years  older  than  that  of  the  ordinary 
Anglo-Saxon  traveller,  I  am  afraid  that  it  was  from 
a  rather  patronizing  piety  that  I  visited  the  church 
where  the  great  St.  Gregory  dismissed  to  their  mission 
in  England  St.  Augustine  and  his  fellow-apostles  on 
one  of  the  greatest  days  of  the  sixth  century.  I  might 
have  stayed  to  imagine  them  kneeling  among  the  peo 
ple  who  then  thronged  the  genially  irregular  piazza, 
but  as  we  came  up  some  ecclesiastical  students  were 
playing  ball  there,  their  robes  tucked  into  their  girdles 
for  their  greater  convenience,  and  we  made  our  way 
at  once  into  the  church.  It  forms  one  of  a  conse 
crated  group  of  edifices  enshrining  the  memory  of  the 
best  of  the  popes,  who  was  also  the  greatest;  and  here 

236 


OF   THE 

(   UNIVERSITY    ) 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

or  in  the  adjacent  convents  a  score  of  miracles  were 
wrought  through  the  heavenly  beauty  of  his  life.  Of 
these  miracles,  of  whose  inspiration  you  must  feel  the 
poetry  even  if  you  cannot  feel  their  verity,  the  love 
liest  has  its  substantial  witness  in  one  of  the  little 
chapels  next  the  church.  There  you  may  see  with 
your  eyes  and  touch  with  your  hands  the  table  at 
which  St.  Gregory  fed  every  morning  twelve  poor 
men,  till  one  morning  a  thirteenth  appeared  in  the 
figure  of  Christ  the  Lord,  as  if  to  own  them  His  dis 
ciples.  The  chapel  which  enshrines  the  table  is  one 
of  three,  quaint  in  form  and  rich  in  art,  standing  in 
the  garden  called  St.  Silvia's,  after  the  mother  of  St. 
Gregory.  As  we  came  out  through  it  the  westering 
sun  poured  the  narrow  court  before  the  chapel  full  of 
golden  light  and  threw  the  black  shadow  of  a  cypress 
across  the  way  that  a  file  of  Comaldolese  monks  were 
taking  to  the  adjoining  convent.  They  were  talking 
cheerily  together,  and  swung  unheeding  by  in  their 
white  robes  so  near  that  I  could  almost  feel  the  waft 
of  them  across  the  centuries  that  parted  their  faith  and 
mine. 

We  had  come  to  St.  Gregory's  from  the  Baths  of 
Caracalla,  which  we  had  set  out  to  see  on  the  first  of 
our  Roman  holidays,  and,  after  turning  aside  for  the 
Coloseum,  had  now  visited  on  next  to  the  last  of  them. 
The  stupendous  ruin  could  scarcely  have  been  growing 
in  the  ten  or  twelve  weeks  that  had  passed,  but  a  be 
wildering  notion  of  something  like  this  obsessed  me 
as  I  saw  it  bulking  aloof  in  overhanging  cliffs  and 
precipices,  through  the  cool  and  bright  April  air, 
against  a  sky  of  absolute  blue.  As  if  it  had  been 
cast  up  out  of  the  earth  in  some  convulsive  throe  of 
nature,  it  floundered  over  its  vast  area  in  shapeless 
masses  which  seemed  to  have  capriciously  received  the 

237 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

effect  of  human  design  in  the  coping  of  the  inaccess 
ible  steeps,  in  the  arches  flinging  themselves  across 
the  spaces  between  the  beetling  crags,  in  the  mon 
strous  spring  and, sweep  of  the  vaults,  in  the  gloom  of 
the  cavernous  apertures  of  its  Titanic  walls.  For  the 
moment  its  immensity  dwarfed  the  image  of  all  the 
other  fragments  of  the  Roman  world  and  set  definite 
bounds  to  their  hugeness  in  the  mind.  It  seemed  to 
have  been  not  so  much  a  single  edifice  as  a  whole  city, 
the  dwelling  instead  of  the  resort  of  the  multitudes 
that  once  thronged  it.  The  traces  of  the  ornamenta 
tion  which  had  enriched  it  everywhere  and  which  it 
had  taken  ages  of  ravage  to  strip  from  it,  accented  its 
savage  majesty,  and  again  the  sentiment  of  spring  in 
the  fresh  afternoon  breeze  and  sunshine,  and  the  in 
nocent  beauty  of  the  blooming  peach  and  cherry  in  the 
orchards  around,  imparted  to  it  a  pathos  in  which  one's 
mere  brute  wonder  was  lost.  But  it  was  a  purely  ad 
ventitious  pathos,  and  it  must  be  owned  here,  at  the  end, 
that  none  of  the  relics  of  ancient  Rome  stir  a  soft  emo 
tion  in  the  beholder,  and,  as  for  beauty,  there  is  more 
of  it  in  some  ivy-netted  fragment  of  some  English  ab 
bey  which  Henry's  Cromwell  "  hammered  down  "  than 
in  the  ruin  of  all  the  palaces  and  temples  and  theatres 
and  circuses  and  baths  of  that  imperial  Rome  which 
the  world  is  so  well  rid  of. 


VII 
A   WEEK   AT    LEGHORN 

WE  left  Rome  with  such  a  nostalgic  pang  in  our 
hearts  that  we  tried  to  find  relief  in  a  name  for  it, 
and  we  called  ourselves  Romesick.  Afterward,  when 
we  practised  the  name  with  such  friends  as  we  could 
get  to  listen,  they  thought  we  said  homesick.  Being  bet 
ter  instructed,  they  stared  or  simpered,  and  said,  "  Oh !" 
That  was  not  all  we  could  have  asked,  but  Rome  her 
self  would  understand,  and,  while  we  were  seeking 
this  outlet  for  our  grief,  she  followed  us  as  far  as  she 
could  on  her  poor,  broken  aqueducts.  At  places  they 
gave  way  under  her,  and  she  fell  down,  but  scrambled 
up  again  on  the  next  stretch  of  arches,  like  some  fond 
cripple  pursuing  a  friend  on  crutches;  when  at  last 
our  train  outran  them,  and  there  was  no  longer  an 
arch  to  halt  upon,  she  gave  up  the  vain  chase  and 
turned  back  within  her  walls,  where  we  saw  her  domes 
and  bell-towers  fading  into  the  heaven  to  which  they 
pointed. 

It  was  a  heaven  of  better  than  absolute  blue,  for  there 
were  soft,  white  clouds  in  it,  and  the  air  that  our 
Sunday  breathed  under  it  was,  at  the  beginning  of 
April,  as  bland  as  that  of  an  American  May-end.  The 
orchard  trees  were  in  bloom — peach  and  plum,  cherry 
and  pear  —  whenever  you  chose  to  look  at  them,  and 

all  nature  seemed  to  rejoice  in  the  cessation  of  the 

'  239 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

two  days'  strike  which  had  now  enabled  us  to  drive 
to  the  station  instead  of  walking  and  carrying  our  bags 
and  bundles.  There  were  so  many  of  these  that  we 
had  taken  two  cabs,  and  at  the  station  our  drivers  at 
tempted  to  rejoice  with  nature  in  an  overcharge  that 
would  have  recouped  them  for  the  loss  suffered  in  their 
recent  leisure.  But  as  we  were  then  leaving  Rome, 
and  were  not  yet  melted  with  the  grief  of  absence,  I 
had  the  courage  to  resist  their  demand.  Long  before 
we  reached  Leghorn  I  was  so  Roinesick  that  I  would 
have  paid  them  anything  they  asked. 

When  we  emerged  from  the  suburbs  upon  the  open 
Campagna,  we  passed  through  many  fields  of  wheat, 
more  than  we  had  yet  seen  on  the  grassy  waste,  but 
there  were  also  many  flocks  of  sheep  feeding  with  the 
cattle  in  pastures.  Now  and  then  we  passed  a  wretch 
ed  hut  which  seemed  to  be  the  dwelling  of  the  shep 
herds  we  saw  tending  the  flocks,  and  here  and  there 
we  came  upon  a  group  of  farm  buildings,  all  of  straw, 
whether  for  man  or  beast,  set  within  a  sort  of  squalid 
court,  with  a  frowzy  suggestion  of  old  women  and  chil 
dren  about  the  doors  of  the  cottages.  We  saw  no  men, 
though  there  must  have  been  men  off  at  work  in  the 
fields  with  the  younger  women. 

As  we  drew  near  Civita  Vecchia  the  sea  widened  on 
our  view7,  wild  with  a  wind  that  seemed  to  have  been 
blowing  ever  since  the  stormy  evening  in  1865  when, 
after  looking  at  the  tossing  ships  in  the  harbor,  we  de 
cided  to  take  the  diligence  for  Leghorn,  rather  than  the 
little  steamer  we  had  meant  to  take.  From  our  pleas 
ant  train  we  now  patronized  Civita  Vecchia  with  a 
recognition  of  its  picturesqueness,  unvexed  by  the 
choice  that  then  insisted  on  itself,  though  the  harbor 
was  as  full  of  shipping  as  of  old.  There  was  time 
to  run  out  for  a  cup  of  coffee  at  the  station  buffet, 

240 


A    WEEK    AT    LEGHORN 

where  there  had  been  neither  station  nor  buffet  in  our 
young  time;  but  doubtless  then  as  now  there  had  been 
the  lonely  graveyard  outside  the  town,  with  its  sea- 
beaten,  seaward  wall.  We  buried  there  the  last  of  our 
Roman  holidays  under  a  sky  that  had  changed  from 
blue  to  gray  since  our  journey  began,  and  mournfully 
set  out  faces  northward  in  the  malarial  Maremma. 

If  the  Marernma  is  as  malarial  as  it  is  famed,  it 
does  not  look  it.  There  were  stretches  of  hopeless 
morass,  with  wide  acreages  under  water,  but  mostly, 
I  should  say,  it  was  rather  a  hilly  country.  'Now  and 
then  we  ran  by  a  stony  old  town  on  a  distant  sum 
mit  like  the  outcropping  of  granite  or  marble,  and 
there  were  frequent  breadths  of  woodland,  oak  and 
pine  and,  I  dare  say,  walnut  and  chestnut.  Evidently 
there  had  been  efforts  to  reclaim  the  Maremma  from  its 
evil  air  and  make  it  safely  habitable,  and  the  farther 
we  penetrated  it  the  more  frequent  the  evidences  were. 
There  were  many  new  buildings  of  a  good  sort,  and  of 
wood  as  well  as  stone;  when  wre  came  to  Grosetto, 
where  we  had  spent  a  memorable  night  after  being 
overturned  in  the  Ombrone,  in  the  attempt  of  our  dili 
gence  to  pass  its  flood,  we  were  aware,  in  the  evening 
light,  of  a  prosperity  which,  if  not  excessive  for  the 
twoscore  years  that  had  passed,  was  still  very  notice 
able.  I  should  not  quite  say  that  the  brick  wall  of  the 
city  had  been  scraped  and  scrubbed,  but  it  looked  very 
neat  and  new,  and  there  was  a  pleasant  suburb  under 
it  where  the  moat  might  have  been,  and  people  were 
coming  and  going  who  had  almost  the  effect  of  com 
muters  ;  at  least,  they  seemed  to  have  come  out  to  their 
homes  by  trolley.  We  resisted  an  impulse  to  dismount 
and  go  up  to  the  inn  in  the  heart  of  the  town  where 
we  had  spent  that  "  night  of  memory  and  of  sighs." 

But  we  searched  the  horizon  round  for  the  point  on  the 
is  241 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

highway  where  our  diligence  had  failed  of  the  track 
between  the  telegraph-poles  and  softly  rolled  with  us  in 
the  muddy  waters,  like  an  elephant  taking  a  bath,  but, 
so  far  from  finding  it,  we  could  not  even  find  the  high 
way.  We  began  to  have  our  doubts  of  what  we  had 
always  believed  had  happened,  and  remained  as  snug 
ly  as  we  could  in  our  compartment,  where,  to  tell 
the  truth,  we  were  not  very  snug.  In  too  fond  a  re 
liance  on  the  almanac,  the  Italian  government  had  cut 
off  the  steam  which  ought  to  have  heated  it,  and  the 
cold  from  the  hills,  on  which  we  saw  snow,  pierced  our 
rugs  and  cushions ;  but,  if  we  had  known  what  we  were 
coming  to  in  Leghorn,  we  should  have  thought  our 
selves  very  enviable. 

I  do  not  knowr  exactly  how  far  it  is  from  the  station 
in  Leghorn  to  the  hotel  where  we  had  providently  en 
gaged  rooms  with  a  fire  in  at  least  one  of  them,  but 
I  should  say  at  a  rough  calculation  it  was  a  hundred 
miles  as  we  covered  the  distance  in  a  one-horse  omnibus, 
through  long,  straight  streets,  after  ten  o'clock  at  night. 
The  streets  and  houses  were  mostly  dark,  as  houses  of 
good  habits  should  be  at  that  hour,  but,  after  passing 
through  a  wide,  lonely  piazza,  we  struck  into  a  street 
longer  and  straighter  than  the  others,  and  drew  up  at 
our  hotel  door  opposite  an  hilarious  cafe,  where  there 
seemed  a  general  rejoicing  of  some  sort.  We  were 
unable  to  make  out  just  what  sort,  or  to  join  in  it 
without  knowing,  though  it  lasted  well  toward  morn 
ing,  and  we  were  up  often  during  the  night  to  see  that 
the  fire  did  not  die  out  of  our  one  porcelain  stove  and 
leave  us  to  perish  of  cold. 

In  Leghorn  the  good  Baedeker  says  that  all  the  hotels 
are  good,  and  this  sweeping  verdict  may  be  true  if 
taken  in  the  sense  that  one  is  as  good  as  another,  but 
they  are  of  the  old  Italian  type  which  our  winter  in 

242* 


A    WEEK    AT    LEGHORN 

Home  had  taught  us  to  think  obsolete;  now  we  found 
that  it  was  only  obsolescent.  We  had  written  to  be 
speak  a  room  with  fire  in  it,  and  this  was  well,  for  the 
hotel  was  otherwise  heated  only  by  the  bodies  of  its 
frequenters,  who,  when  filled  with  Chianti,  might  emit 
a  sensible  warmth ;  though  it  was  very  modern  in  being 
lighted  with  electricity,  and  having  a  lift,  in  which, 
after  a  tepid  supper,  we  were  carried  to  our  apart 
ment.  We  had  our  landlord's  company  at  supper,  and 
had  learned  from  him  that  the  most  eminent  of  Amer 
ican  financiers,  who  shall  not  otherwise  be  identified 
here,  was  in  the  habit,  when  coming  to  Leghorn,  of 
letting  him  know  that  he  was  bringing  a  party  of 
friends,  and  commanding  of  him  a  banquet  such  as  he 
alone  knew  how  to  furnish  a  millionaire  of  that  prince 
ly  quality.  After  that  we  were  not  so  much  surprised 
as  grieved  to  find  that  our  elderly  chambermaid  had 
profited  by  our  absence  to  gather  all  the  coals  out  of 
our  one  stove  into  two  scaldim,  which  were  bristling 
before  her  where  she  knelt  when  we  opened  the  door 
upon  her.  She  apologized,  but  still  she  carried  away 
the  coals,  and  we  were  left  to  rekindle  the  zeal  of  our 
stove  as  best  we  could.  It  was  not  a  large  stove,  and 
it  seemed  to  feel  its  inadequacy  to  the  office  of  taking 
the  chill  off  that  vast,  dim  room,  where  it  cowered,  dark 
and  low  upon  the  floor,  with  a  yearning,  upward  stretch 
of  its  pipe  lost  in  space  before  it  reached  the  lowermost 
goddess  in  the  allegory  frescoed  on  the  ceiling.  If  it 
had  been  a  white  porcelain  stove,  that  might  have  help 
ed,  but  it  was  of  a  gloomy  earthen  color  that  imparted 
no  more  cheer  than  warmth. 

We  rebuilt  our  fire,  after  many  repeated  demands 
for  kindling,  which  had  apparently  to  be  sawed  and 
split  in  a  distant  wood-yard  before  we  could  get  it, 

and  then  the  long,  arctic  night  set  in,  unrelieved  by  the 

243 


KOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHEKS 

noisy  gayeties  of  the  cafe  across  the  way.  These  burst 
from  time  to  time  the  thin  film  of  sleep  which  formed 
like  a  coating  of  ice  over  the  consciousness,  and  then 
one  could  only  get  up  and  put  more  wood  into  the  de 
spairing  stove  and  more  clothes  on  the  beds.  Well  for 
us  that  we  had  thought  to  bring  all  our  travelling  rugs 
with  us  in  straps,  instead  of  abandoning  them  with 
our  other  baggage  in  the  station  till  next  day!  But, 
even  with  these  heaping  the  hotel  blankets  and  com 
forters,  we  shivered,  and  a  superannuated  odor  that  had 
lurked  in  the  recesses  of  those  rooms,  to  which  the  sun 
or  wind  had  never  pierced,  grew  with  the  growing  cold, 
and  haunted  the  night  like  something  palpable  as  well 
as  sensible  —  the  materialization  of  smells  dead  and 
buried  there  long  ago.  It  was  wonderful  how  little 
way  the  electric  bulb  shed  its  beams  in  that  naughty 
air;  it  would  not  even  light  the  page  which  at  one 
time  was  opened  in  the  vain  hope  that  the  author  would 
help  the  benumbing  cold  to  bring  torpor  if  not  slumber 
to  the  weary  brain. 

It  is  really  impossible  to  say  where  or  how  we  break 
fasted,  but  it  was  somehow  managed,  and  then  search 
was  made  by  the  swiftest  conveyance  for  the  hotel 
which  we  had  heard  of  outside  the  city,  as  helping 
make  Leghorn  the  watering-place  it  is  for  Italians  in 
the  summer,  and  in  the  winter  as  being  steam-heated 
and  appointed  with  every  modern  comfort  for  the  pass 
ing  or  sojourning  stranger.  It  was  all  that  and  more, 
and  only  for  the  fear  that  I  should  seem  to  join  it  in 
advertising  its  merits  I  should  like  to  celebrate  it  by 
name.  But  perhaps  it  is  as  well  not ;  if  I  did,  all  my 
readers  would  swarm  upon  that  hotel,  and  there  would 
be  no  room  for  me,  who  hope  some  day  to  go  back 
there  and  spend  an  old  age  of  luxurious  leisure.  There 
was  not  only  steam-heat  in  the  public  rooms  of  the 

244 


A    WEEK    AT    LEGHORN 

ground  floor,  but  there  was  furnace  heat  in  all  the 
corridors,  and  there  were  fireplaces  in  certain  chambers, 
which  also  looked  out  on  the  sea,  to  Corsica  and  Elba 
and  other  isles  of  it,  and  would  be  full  of  sun  as  soon 
as  the  cold  rain  closed  a  fortnight's  activity.  That 
which  diffused  a  blander  atmosphere  than  steam  or 
radiator,  register  and  hearth,  however,  was  the  kind 
will,  the  benevolent  intelligence,  which  imagined  us, 
and  which  would  not  then  let  us  go.  We  had  become 
not  only  agnostic  as  respected  the  possibility  of  warmth 
in  Leghorn,  we  were  open  sceptics,  aggressive  infidels. 
But  the  landlord  himself  followed  us  from  one  room  to 
another,  lighting  fires  here  and  there  on  the  hearth, 
making  us  feel  the  warm  air  rising  from  the  furnace, 
calling  us  to  witness  by  palpation  the  heat  of  the  radi 
ators,  soothing  our  fears,  and  coaxing  our  unf aith.  His 
wife  joined  him  in  Italian  and  his  son  in  English,  and, 
if  I  do  not  say  that  these  amiable  people  were  worthy 
all  the  prosperity  which  was  not  then  apparent  in  their 
establishment,  may  I  never  be  comfortably  lodged  or  fed 
again.  Our  daily  return  for  what  we  got  was  a  poor 
twelve  francs  each ;  but  fancy  a  haughty  American  land 
lord  caressing  us  with  such  sweet  and  reassuring  civil 
ity  for  any  sum  of  money !  Those  gentle  people  made 
themselves  our  friends;  there  was  nothing  they  would 
not  do,  or  try  to  do,  for  us,  in  the  vast,  pink  palace 
where  we  were  never  twenty  guests  together,  and  mostly 
eight  or  ten,  with  the  run  of  a  reading-room  where  there 
were  the  latest  papers  and  periodicals  from  London 
and  Paris,  and  with  a  kitchen  whence  we  were  served 
the  best  luncheons  and  dinners  we  ate  in  Europe. 

The  place  had  the  true  out-of-season  charm.  There 
were  two  stately  dining-rooms  besides  the  one  where 
we  dined,  and  there  were  pleasant  spaces  where  we  had 
afternoon  tea  or  after-dinner  coffee,  and  from  which 

245 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

a  magnificent  stairway  ascended  to  the  upper  halls,  and 
a  quiet  lift  waited  our  orders,  with  the  landlord  or  his 
son  to  take  us  up;  and  so  lonely  and  quiet  and  gentle, 
with  porters  and  chambermaids  speaking  beautiful  Tus 
can,  and  watchful  attendants  everywhere  prophesying 
and  fulfilling  our  wants.  It  was  a  keeping  to  make 
the  worst  believe  in  their  merit,  and  we  were  not  the 
worst.  Outside,  the  environment  flattered  or  rewarded 
us  with  a  garden  of  laurel  and  other  evergreens,  and 
with  flower-beds  where  the  annuals  were  beginning  to 
show  the  gardener's  designs  in  their  sprouting  seeds. 
Beyond  these  ample  villa  bounds  a  tram-car  murmured 
to  and  from  the  well-removed  city,  and  beyond  its  track 
lay  a  line  of  open-air  theatres  and  variety  shows  and 
bathing  establishments,  as  at  our  own  Atlantic  City, 
but  here  in  enduring  masonry  instead  of  the  provisional 
wood  of  our  summer  architecture. 

This  festive  preparation  intimated  the  watering- 
place  supremacy  which  Leghorn  enjoys  in  Italy,  and 
which  must  make  our  quiet  hotel  in  the  season  glisten 
and  twitter  and  flutter  with  the  vivid  national  life. 
The  preparation  includes  a  delightful  drive  by  the  sea 
shore,  with  groves  and  gardens,  to  the  city  gate  and 
indefinitely  beyond  it,  which  we  one  day  followed  as 
far  as  an  old  fort,  where  a  little  hotel  had  nestled 
with  every  promise  of  simple  comfort.  There  was  a 
neighboring  village  of  no  very  exciting  interest,  and  I 
do  not  know  that  the  Italian  Naval  Academy,  which 
we  passed  on  the  way,  was  very  exciting,  though  with 
its  villa  grounds  it  had  a  pleasing  rural  effect.  Hard 
by  our  hotel,  in  a  piazza  that  seemed  to  have  nothing 
to  do  but  surround  it,  was  the  colossal  bust  of  an  Italian 
admiral,  or  the  like,  which  had  not  the  impressiveness 
of  a  colossal  full  -  length  figure,  but  which  rendered 
the  original  with  the  faithful  realism  of  the  Genoese 

246 


A    WEEK    AT    LEGHORN 

Campo  Santo  sculpture.  In  compensation  there  was, 
toward  the  city,  near  the  ship-yards  where  the  great 
Italian  battle-ships  are  built,  the  statue  of  their  builder 
— a  man  who  looked  it — standing  at  large  ease,  with 
one  hand  in  his  pantaloons  pocket,  and  not  apparently 
conscious  of  the  passer's  gaze.  Beyond  the  ship-yard, 
in  which  a  battle  -  ship  was  then  receiving  the  last 
touches,  was  a  statue  for  which  I  could  not  claim 
an  equal  unconsciousness.  In  fact,  it  challenged  the 
public  attention  and  even  homage  as  it  extended  the 
baton  of  command  and  triumphed  over  the  four  Moor 
ish  or  Algerine  corsairs  who,  in  their  splendid  nudity, 
were  chained  to  the  several  corners  of  the  monument 
and  owned  themselves  galley  -  slaves.  The  Medi- 
cean  grand  -  duke  who  lords  it  over  them,  and  who 
erected  this  monument  in  honor  of  himself  for  the 
victories  his  admirals  had  gained  in  sweeping  the 
pirates  from  the  seas,  is  a  very  proud  presence,  and 
is  certainly  worthy  of  the  admiration  which  his  bronze 
requires  from  the  spectator.  I  instantly  suspected  this 
monument  of  being  the  chief  sculpture  of  Leghorn,  and 
I  did  not  wonder  that  a  valet  de  place  was  lying  in  wait 
for  me  there  to  make  me  observe  that  from  a  certain 
point  I  could  get  all  four  of  the  galley-slaves'  noses 
in  perspective  at  once.  Upon  experiment  I  did  not 
find  that  I  could  do  this,  but  I  imputed  my  failure  to 
want  of  merit  in  myself  and  not  the  monument,  and 
I  willingly  paid  half  a  franc  for  the  suggestion;  if 
all  one's  failures  cost  so  little,  one  could  save  money. 
I  was  going  then  to  view  at  close  quarters  the  port 
of  Leghorn,  which  is  famous  for  its  mole  and  light 
house  and  quarantine,  the  first  of  their  kind  in  their 
time.  The  old  port,  with  the  fortifications,  was  the 
work  of  a  natural  son  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  Earl  of 
Leicester,  whose  noble  origin  was  so  constantly  recog- 

247 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

nized  by  the  Tuscan  grand-dukes  that  he  came  at  last 
to  be  accepted  as  Lord  Dudley  by  the  English.  From 
his  day,  if  not  from  his  work,  the  prosperity  of  Leg 
horn  began,  and  the  English  have  always  had  a  great 
part  in  it.  Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  there  were 
a  score  of  great  British  merchants  settled  there,  and, 
though  afterward  they  declined  in  number,  the  trade 
with  England  did  not  decline,  and  the  trade  with  Amer 
ica  has  always  been  such  that  American  merchants  and 
captains  have  fully  shared  in  the  commerce  directly  or 
indirectly.  Both  the  old  and  the  new  port  were  a 
scene  of  pleasant  activity  the  pleasant  afternoon  when 
I  visited  them,  and  were  full  of  varied  sail  as  well 
as  many  steamers,  loading  or  unloading  for  or  from 
the  Mediterranean  ports,  east  and  west,  and  the  Hanse- 
atic  cities  and  the  far  coasts  of  Norway. 

Any  seaport  is  charming  and  full  of  romantic  in 
terest,  but  an  Italian  port  has  always  a  prime  pictur- 
esqueness.  Its  sailors  are  the  most  ancient  mariners, 
and  they  look  full  of  history,  and  capable,  each  of  them, 
of  discovering  a  continent.  I  cannot  say  that  I  saw 
any  nascent  Columbus  in  the  tanned  and  tarry  com 
pany  I  met,  but  I  do  not  deny  that  there  was  one. 
Leghorn  is  still  in  her  lusty  youth,  being  not  much 
older  than  our  Boston  in  the  prosperity  which  has  not 
failed  her  since  the  Medici  divined  her  importance 
toward  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  fortified 
her  harbor  till  she  was  one  of  the  strongest  places  on 
the  Mediterranean.  With  a  hazy  general  consciousness 
of  her  modernity  in  mind,  I  had  imagined  her  yet  more 
modern,  and  I  was  somewhat  surprised  to  read,  in  a 
rather  airy  and  ironical  but  very  capable  local  guide 
book  called  Su  e  Giu  per  Livorno  (or  Up  and  Down 
Leghorn),  that  the  place  was  settled  twenty-six  hun 
dred  and  fifty-six  years  before  Christ.  The  author 

248 


A    WEEK    AT    LEGHORN 

records  this  with  a  smile,  and  then,  by  a  leap  over 
some  forty  centuries,  he  finds  firm  footing  in  the  fact 
that  the  great  Countess  Matilde,  then  much  bothering 
about  in  the  affairs  of  her  Tuscan  neighbors  every 
where,  gave  the  Livornese  coasts  to  Pisa  in  1103.  This 
seems  to  have  been  the  signal  for  the  Genoese,  eleven 
years  later,  to  ravage  and  destroy  the  Pisan  settlements ; 
but  later  the  Pisans,  confirmed  in  their  possession  by 
the  Emperor  of  Germany,  rebuilt  and  embellished  the 
port.  A  century  after,  Charles  of  Anjou  demolished 
it,  and  then  the  Pisans  fortified  it  some  more.  Then, 
in  the  last  years  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  Floren 
tines,  Lucchese,  and  Genoese  devastated  the  whole  ter 
ritory  of  Pisa,  and  left  Leghorn  only  one  poor  little 
church.  Well  throughout  the  fourteenth  century  there 
were  wars  between  these  republics,  and  Leghorn  suf 
fered  the  consequences,  being,  as  our  author  says,  "  ac 
cording  to  custom,  assailed,  taken,  wasted,  and  de 
stroyed."  But  before  that  century  was  out  she  seems 
to  have  flourished  up  again,  and  to  have  received  with 
all  honor  Gregory  XL,  returning  from  Avignon  to 
Rome  and  bringing  the  papacy  back  from  its  long  exile 
to  the  Eternal  City. 

The  Genoese  now  sold  Leghorn  to  Milan,  and  in 
1407  she  was  sold  to  France  for  twenty-six  thousand 
florins,  which  seems  low  for  a  whole  city.  But  in 
less  than  ten  years  we  find  the  Genoese  back  again,  and 
strengthening  and  adorning  her  at  the  greatest  rate. 
It  was  quite  time  now  that  she  should  be  visited  by  a 
virulent  pestilence,  and  that,  having  passed  to  Florence 
in  the  meanwhile,  she  should  have  been  ceded  without 
a  blow  to  Charles  VIII.  of  France.  But  in  a  year  she 
was  once  more  in  the  hold  of  Florence  and  helping  that 
republic  fight  her  enemies  the  Pisans,  and  her  other 
enemies  under  the  Emperor  Maximilian  of  Germany. 

249 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

More  fortifying,  embellishing,  and  pestilence  followed, 
and  in  1429  Michelangelo  came  to  inspect  the  new 
fortifications  which  the  Florentine  republic  had  built 
at  Leghorn  to  repair  the  damages  she  had  suffered. 
The  next  year  the  republic  fell,  and  Alessandro  de' 
Medici,  who  came  in  master  at  Florence,  took  Leghorn 
into  the  favor  which  his  family  continued  to  show  her 
to  the  end.  The  first  Cosimo  greatly  improved  her 
harbor,  dug  canals,  and  built  forts,  but  he  let  the  Span 
iards,  for  a  pleasure  to  Charles  V.,  place  garrisons  in 
Florence,  Pisa,  and  Leghorn,  and  the  Spaniards  re 
mained  six  years  at  Leghorn.  In  the  last  year  of  the 
sixteenth  century  Ferdinand  erected  to  himself  the 
superb  monument  with  the  four  captive  corsairs  at 
the  corners,  whose  noses  I  had  failed  to  get  in  range, 
and  in  the  meanwhile  many  great  public  works  had 
been  constructed  and  the  city  desolated  by  another 
plague.  It  was  now  time  for  the  English  to  appear 
in  those  waters,  and  in  1652  they  were  defeated  by  the 
Dutch  off  Leghorn.  About  seventy-five  years  later  the 
grippe  paid  Leghorn  a  first  visit,  and  not  long  after 
a  violent  earthquake  shook  down  many  buildings  and 
killed  many  women  and  children;  but  the  authorities 
did  what  they  could  to  secure  the  city  in  future  by 
declaring  the  day  a  perpetual  fast,  and  forbidding 
masking  and  dancing  on  it. 

No  disaster  worth  recording  befell  the  city  till  Bona 
parte  came  with  the  Rights  of  Man  in  1796  and  left  a 
French  garrison,  which  evacuated  the  place  the  next 
year,  after  having  levied  a  fine  of  two  million  francs. 
The  year  after  that  Nelson  occupied  it  with  eight  thou 
sand  English  troops,  and  the  following  year  the  French 
reoccupied  it  and  sacked  the  churches  and  imposed  an 
other  fine  nearly  as  great  as  the  first.  After  the  Na 
poleonic  victories  in  the  Italian  wars,  they  seem  to 

250 


A    WEEK    AT    LEGHORN 

have  come  back  again  and  fined  the  city  two  mill 
ion  francs  more.  They  now  remained  five  years,  and 
in  the  mean  time  a  Livornese,  Giovanni  Antonio 
Giaschi,  invented  a  submarine-boat  for  attacking  and 
destroying  war-vessels,  and  a  Spanish  ship  brought  the 
yellow-fever.  In  1808  Napoleon  gave  all  Tuscany,  and 
Leghorn  with  it,  to  his  sister  Elisa,  but  when  in  1814 
he  was  deposed,  Leghorn  was  restored  to  the  Tuscan 
grand-dukes  and  garrisoned  for  them  by  German  troops, 
an  earthquake  having  profited  by  the  general  disorder 
meantime  to  pay  it  another  visit.  The  grand-duke  now 
being  driven  out  of  Florence  by  Murat,  he  took  refuge 
at  Leghorn,  which  fell  a  prey  to  an  epidemic  of  typhus. 
The  first  steam-vessel  appared  there  in  1818,  and  in 
1835  the  Asiatic  cholera;  in  1847  a  telegraphic  line  to 
Pisa  was  opened. 

In  1848  the  revolutions  prevalent  throughout  Europe 
had  their  effect  at  Leghorn.  The  citizens  shared  in 
the  uprising  against  the  grand-duke,  and  elected  among 
its  representatives  F.  D.  Guerrazzi,  once  famous  as  the 
first  of  Italian  novelists  and  a  man  of  generous  mind 
and  heart,  who  duly  suffered  arrest  and  imprisonment 
when  the  grand-duke  was  restored  by  the  Austrians. 
He  was  sentenced  to  fifteen  years'  prison  with  hard 
labor,  but  later  his  sentence  was  commuted  to  exile. 
He  lived  to  return  and  take  part  in  the  Italian  unifica 
tion  in  1860,  and  in  1866  he  led  the  movement  against 
making  peace  with  Austria  unless  all  her  Italian-speak 
ing  provinces  were  ceded  to  Italy.  He  died  in  1873, 
and  is  remembered  in  Leghorn  by  a  monument  very 
ineffective  as  a  whole,  but  singularly  interesting  in 
certain  details. 

I  have  omitted  from  this  catalogue  of  events  many  of 
peaceful  interest,  such  as  visits  from  popes,  princes,  and 

poets,  and  I  am  not  sure  I  have  got  in  all  the  plagues 

251 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

and  earthquakes.  Perhaps  I  have  the  more  willingly 
suppressed  a  few  war-like  facts,  in  the  interest  of  the 
superstition  I  had  cherished  that  Leghorn  was  with 
out  a  history,  or  that  it  had  no  more  history  than  most 
American  cities  of  equal  date  with  its  commercial  im 
portance,  which  began  with  the  wise  hospitality  o'f  the 
Medici  to  merchants  of  all  races  and  nations,  religions 
and  races,  settled  there,  and  especially  to  the  Spanish 
Jews  who  came  in  great  numbers  to  the  city  that  it 
was  a  common  saying  that  you  had  as  well  strike  the 
duke  as  strike  a  Jew  in  Leghorn.  Greeks,  Turks, 
Armenians  were  protected  equally  with  English  and 
Dutch,  and  infidel  and  heretic  were  alike  free  in 
their  worship.  It  was  the  great  prison  of  the  galley- 
slaves,  who  were  chiefly  the  pirates  and  corsairs  taken 
on  the  high  seas  by  the  duke's  ships.  These  captives 
not  only  served  as  models  for  the  Moors  at  the  base  of 
his  monument,  but  they  must  have  been  very  useful 
in  the  different  public  works  which  he  and  his  suc 
cessors  carried  out.  Now  they  and  their  like  are 
gone,  and  though  the  Greeks,  the  Armenians,  the 
English,  and  the  Scotch  still  have  their  churches,  I  do 
not  suppose  there  is  a  mosque  in  all  Leghorn. 

I  do  not  speak  very  confidently,  because  my  re 
searches  in  that  sort  were  not  exhaustive.  I  indeed 
visited  the  cathedral,  not  wholly  because  Inigo  Jones 
had  something  to  do  in  planning  it,  but  because  I  had 
formed  the  habit  of  visiting  churches  in  Rome,  and  I 
mechanically  went  into  one  wherever  I  saw  it.  Gen 
erally  speaking,  I  think  that  they  were  rather  bare  in 
painting  or  sculpture,  but  they  were  such  churches  as 
in  America  one  would  go  a  long  way  to  see  and  think 
one's  self  well  rewarded  by  their  objects  of  interest. 
I  do  not  know  what  defence  to  offer  for  not  having 
visited  the  galleries  of  the  Museo  Civico,  where  by 

252 


A    WEEK    AT    LEGHORN 

actual  count  in  the  guide-book  I  missed  one  hundred 
and  sixty-nine  works  of  art,  though  just  how  many 
masterpieces  I  am  not  able  to  say:  probably  one  out 
of  every  ten  was  a  masterpiece.  But,  if  I  did  not  much 
resort  to  the  churches  and  galleries  in  Leghorn,  I  roam 
ed  gladly  through  its  pleasant  streets  and  squares,  and 
by  the  shores  of  the  canals  which  once  gave  it  the  name 
of  New  Venice,  and  which  still  invite  the  smaller  ship 
ping  up  among  its  houses  in  right  Venetian  fashion. 
The  streets  of  Leghorn  are  not  so  straight  as  they  are 
long,  but  many  are  very  straight,  and  the  others  are 
curved  rather  than  crooked.  The  longest  and  straight- 
est  were  streets  of  low  dwelling-houses,  uncommon  in 
Italian  towns,  where  each  family  lived  under  its  own 
roof  with  a  little  garden  behind,  and  a  respective  en 
trance,  as  people  still  mostly  do  in  our  towns.  From 
the  force  of  the  mid-April  sun  in  these  streets  I  realized 
what  they  might  be  in  summer,  and,  if  I  lived  in  Leg 
horn,  I  would  rather  live  on  the  sea-front,  in  one  of  the 
comfortable,  square,  stone  villas  which  border  it.  But 
everywhere  Leghorn  seemed  a  pleasant  place  to  live, 
and  convenient,  with  lively  shops  and  cafes  and  trams 
and  open  spaces,  and  statues  and  monuments  in  them. 
The  city,  I  understood,  is  of  somewhat  radical  poli 
tics,  tending  from  clericalism  to  socialism;  and,  like 
every  other  Italian  city,  it  is  full  of  patriotic  monu 
ments.  There  is  a  Victor  Emmanuel  on  horseback, 
plump  and  squat,  but  heroic  as  always,  and  a  Gari 
baldi  struggling  in  vain  for  beauty  in  his  poncho  and 
his  round,  flat  cap;  there  is  a  Mazzini,  there  is  a 
Cavour,  and,  above  all,  there  is  a  Guerrazzi,  no  great 
thing  as  to  the  seated  figure,  but  most  interesting,  most 
touching  in  two  of  the  bas-reliefs  below.  One  repre 
sents  him  proclaiming  the  provisional  government  at 
Florence  in  1849,  after  the  expulsion  of  the  grand- 

253 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

duke,  where  the  fact  is  studied,  with  the  wonderful 
realism  of  the  Italians,  in  all  its  incidents  and  the 
costumes  of  the  thronging  spectators.  The  sculptor  has 
hesitated  at  no  top-hat  or  open  umbrella;  there  are 
barefooted  boys  and  bareheaded  young  girls,  as  well 
as  bearded  elders;  if  my  memory  serves,  the  scene  is 
not  without  a  dog  or  two.  But  it  is  the  other  relief 
which  is  so  simply  and  so  deeply  affecting — the  in 
terior  of  a  narrow  cell,  with  one  chair  and  a  rude 
table,  at  which  the  patriot  novelist  wrote  his  greatest 
work,  The  Siege  of  Florence,  and  with  him  standing 
a  little  way  from  it.  In  spite  of  the  small  space  and 
the  almost  vacant  stage,  the  scene  is  full  of  most  mov 
ing  drama,  and  records  a  whole  Italian  epoch,  now 
happily  past  forever. 

These  are  modern  sculptures,  and  they  scarcely  con 
test  the  palm  with  the  monument  of  the  four  galley- 
slaves  and  the  Medicean  grand-duke.  In  another  piazza 
two  princes  of  the  Lorrainese  family,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  face  each  other  over  its  oblong — classic  mo 
tives,  with  the  figures  much  undraped,  and  one  of  them 
singularly  impressive  from  the  mutton-chop  whiskers 
which  modernized  him.  There  are  several  theatres,  and 
among  them  a  Goldoni  theatre,  as  there  should  be  in 
a  city  where  the  sweet  old  playwright  sojourned  for  a 
time  and  has  placed  the  action  of  his  famous  comedy, 
"La  Locandiera."  But  I  was  told  that  the  local  theatres 
were  not  so  much  frequented  by  polite  people,  especially 
for  opera,  as  the  theatre  in  Pisa,  which,  if  poorer,  is 
prouder  in  its  society  than  its  old-time  vassal  by  the  sea, 
and  attracts  the  fashion  of  Leghorn  during  the  season. 

As  Pisa  has  ceased  to  be  the  colony  of  literary  Eng 
lish  it  once  was,  in  the  time  of  Byron  and  Hunt  and 
Shelley,  to  name  no  others,  so  Leghorn  has  ceased  to 
be  the  mercantile  colony  of  former  days.  It  has  stilj 

254 


A    WEEK    AT    LEGHORN 

a  great  deal  of  commerce  with  England,  but  this  is  no 
longer  carried  on  by  resident  merchants,  though  here 
and  there  an  English  name  lingers  in  the  style  of  a 
business  house;  and  the  distinctive  qualities  of  both 
colonies  are  united  in  the  author  of  a  charming  book 
who  fills  the  post  of  British  consul  at  Leghorn.  His 
Tuscan  Towns  must  not  be  confused  with  another  book 
called  Tuscan  Cities,  though,  if  the  traveller  chooses  to 
carry  both  with  him  about  Tuscany,  I  will  not  say  that 
he  could  do  better.  In  Tuscan  Cities  there  is  nothing 
about  Leghorn,  I  believe,  but  in  Tuscan  Towns  there 
is  a  specially  delightful  chapter  about  the  place,  its  peo 
ple,  language,  and  customs  which  I  can  commend  to  the 
reader  as  the  best  corrective  of  the  errors  I  must  have 
been  constantly  falling  into  here. 

It  was  in  company  no  less  enviable  than  this  au 
thor's  that  I  revisited  the  port  on  a  gray  Sunday  after 
noon  of  my  stay,  and  then  for  the  first  time  visited 
the  ancient  fortifications  which  began  to  be  in  the 
time  of  the  Countess  Matilde  and  intermittently  in 
creased  under  the  rule  of  the  Pisan,  Genoese,  and  Flor 
entine  republics,  until  the  Medicean  grand-dukes  ampli 
fied  them  in  almost  the  proportions  I  saw.  The  brutal 
first  duke  of  their  line,  Alessandro  de'  Medici,  who 
some  say  was  no  Medici,  but  the  bastard  of  a  negro  and 
a  washerwoman,  stamped  his  creed  in  the  inscription 
below  his  adoptive  arms,  "  Under  one  Eaith  and  one 
Law,  one  Lord,"  and  it  was  in  the  palace  here,  the 
story  goes,  that  the  wicked  Cosimo  I.  killed  his  son 
Don  Garzia  before  the  eyes  of  the  boy's  mother.  Any 
thing  is  imaginable  of  an  early  Medicean  grand-duke, 
but  in  a  manner  the  father's  murderous  fury  was  pro 
voked  by  the  fact,  if  it  was  a  fact,  that  Don  Garzia 
had  just  mortally  wounded  his  brother  Giovanni.  I 
should  like  to  pretend  that  the  tragedy  had  wrought 

255 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

in  my  unconsciousness  to  the  effect  of  the  pensive  gloom 
which  the  old  fortress  cast  over  me,  but  perhaps  I 
had  better  not.  There  are  some  gray  Sunday  after 
noons  of  a  depressing  effect  on  the  spirit  which  requires 
no  positive  or  palpable  reason. 

In  any  case  it  was  a  relief  to  go  from  the  shadow  of 
the  past  there  through  the  pleasant  city  streets  to  the 
gentle  quiet  of  the  British  cemetery,  where  so  many  of 
our  race  and  some  even  of  our  own  nation  are  taking 
their  long  rest.  No  one  is  now  buried  there,  and  the 
place,  in  the  gradual  diminution  of  the  English  colony 
at  Leghorn,  has  fallen  into  a  lovely  and  appealing 
neglect  if  not  oblivion.  Oblivion  quite  covers  its 
origin,  but  it  is  almost  as  old  as  Protestantism  itself, 
and,  if  the  ground  for  it  was  the  gift  of  the  grand- 
duke  who  tolerated  heretics  as  well  as  Jews  in  the  im 
pulse  he  gave  to  the  city's  growth,  it  would  not  be 
strange.  The  beautiful  porch  of  the  English  church, 
for  once  Greek  and  not  Gothic,  fronts  upon  it,  but  the 
dwindling  congregation  has  no  care  of  it,  and  there  is 
no  fund  to  keep  it  so  much  as  free  from  weeds  and 
brambles  and  the  insidious  ivy  rending  its  monuments 
asunder.  The  afternoon  of  our  visit  it  was  in  the  sole 
charge  of  a  large,  gray  cat,  which,  after  feasting  upon 
the  favorite  herb,  lay  stretched  in  sleep  on  a  sunny 
bed  of  catnip  under  the  walls  of  a  mansion  near,  at 
whose  windows  some  young  girls  looked  down  in  a 
Sunday  listlessness,  as  we  wandered  about  among  the 
"  tall  cypresses,  myrtles,  pines,  eucalyptus-trees,  ole 
anders,  cactuses,  huge  bushes  of  monthly  roses,  a  jun 
gle  of  periwinkles,  sarsaparilla,  wild  irises,  violets,  and 
other  loveliest  of  wild  flowers."  On  the  forgotten  tombs 
were  the  touching  epitaphs  of  those  who  had  died 
in  exile,  and  whose  monuments  are  sometimes  here 
while  their  ashes  lie  in  Florence  or  Rome,  or  wher- 

256 


A    WEEK    AT    LEGHORN 

ever  else  they  chanced  to  meet  their  end.  Among  them 
were  the  inscriptions  on  the  graves  of  "  William  Magee 
Seton,  merchant  of  New  York,"  who  died  at  Pisa  in 
1803,  and  "Henry  De  Butts,  a  citizen  of  Baltimore, 
!N".  America,"  who  died  at  Sarzana ;  with  "  James  M. 
Knight,  Esq.,  Captain  of  Marines,  Citizen  of  the 
United  States  of  America,"  who  died  at  Leghorn  in 
1802 ;  and  "  Thomas  Gamble,  Late  Captain  in  the 
Navy  of  the  United  States  of  America,"  who  died 
at  Pisa  in  1818;  and  doubtless  there  were  other 
Americans  whose  tombs  I  did  not  see.  The  memo 
rials  of  the  English  were  likewise  here,  whether 
they  died  at  Leghorn  or  not;  but  most  of  them  seem 
to  have  ended  their  lives  in  that  place,  where  there 
were  once  so  many  English  residents,  whether  for 
their  health  or  their  profit.  The  youth  of  some  testi 
fied  to  the  fact  that  they  had  failed  to  find  the  air 
specific  for  their  maladies,  and  doubtless  this  would 
account  also  for  the  disproportionate  number  of  noble 
ladies  who  rest  here,  with  their  hatchments  and  their 
coronets  and  robes  of  state  carven  on  the  stones  above 
them.  Among  others  one  reads  the  titles  of  Lady  Cath 
arine  Burgess  born  Beauclerk;  Jane  Isabella,  widow 
of  the  Earl  of  Lanesborough  and  daughter  of  the 
Earl  of  Molesworth ;  and  Catharine  Murray,  only  child 
of  James  Murray,  .  .  .  and  the  Right  Honorable  Lady 
Catharine  Stewart  his  Spouse,"  with  knights,  admirals, 
generals,  and  other  military  and  naval  officers  a  many. 
Most  important  of  all  is  the  tomb  of  that  strenuous 
spirit,  more  potent  for  good  and  ill  in  the  English 
fiction  of  his  time  than  any  other  novelist  of  his  time, 
and  second  only  to  Richardson  in  the  wide  influence  of 
his  literary  method,  Tobias  Smollett,  namely,  who  here 
ended  his  lon^  fight  with  consumption  and  the  indif 
ference  of  his  country  to  his  claims  upon  her  official 
"  257 


EOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

recognition.  After  many  years  of  narrow  circum 
stance  in  the  Southern  climates  where  he  spent  his 
later  life,  he  tried  in  vain  for  that  meek  hope  of 
literary  ambition,  a  consulate,  perhaps  the  very  post 
that  my  companion,  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  later, 
was  worthily  holding.  The  truest  monument  to  his 
stay  in  Italy  is  the  book  of  Italian  travel  that  he  wrote, 
and  the  best  effect  is  that  sort  of  peripatetic  novel 
which  he  may  be  said  to  have  invented  in  Humphrey 
Clinker,  and  which  has  survived  the  epistolary  form 
into  our  own  time.  It  is  a  very  simple  shaft  that  rises 
over  his  grave,  with  the  brief  record,  "  Memoriae 
Tobiae  Smollett,  qui  Liburni  animam  efflavit,  16  Sept., 
1773,"  but  it  is  imaginable  with  what  wrath  he  would 
have  disputed  the  record,  if  it  is  true,  according  to  all 
the  other  authorities,  that  he  exhaled  his  spirit  two 
years  earlier,  and  how  he  would  have  had  it  out  with 
those  "  friends  and  fellow-countrymen  "  who  had  the 
error  perpetuated  above  his  helpless  dust. 

It  was  not  easy  to  quit  the  sweetly  solemn  place 
or  to  resist  the  wish  which  I  have  here  indulged,  that 
some  kinsman  or  kinswoman  of  those  whom  the  blos 
soms  and  leaves  are  hiding  would  come  to  their  rescue 
from  nature  now  cleiming  an  undue  part  in  them,  and 
obliterating  their  very  memories.  One  would  not  have 
a  great  deal  done,  but  only  enough  to  save  their  names 
from  entire  oblivion,  and  with  the  hope  of  this  I  have 
named  some  of  their  names.  It  might  not  be  too  much 
even  for  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  United  States, 
though  both  very  poor  nations,  to  join  in  contributing 
the  sum  necessary  for  the  work.  Or  some  millionaire 
English  duke,  or  some  millionaire  American  manufact 
urer,  might  make  the  outlay  alone ;  I  cannot  expect  any 
millionaire  author  to  provide  a  special  fund  for  the 
care  of  the  tomb  of  Smollett. 


VIII 
OVEE    AT   PISA 

IF  the  half -hour  between  Leghorn  and  Pisa  had  been 
spent  in  any  less  lovely  transit,  I  should  still  be  griev 
ing  for  the  loss  of  the  thirty  minutes  which  might  so 
much  better  have  been  given  to  either  place.  But  with 
the  constant  line  of  mountains  enclosing  the  landscape 
on  the  right,  in  all  its  variety  of  tillage,  pasture-land, 
vineyard,  and  orchard,  and  the  unchanging  level  which 
had  once  been  the  bed  of  the  sea,  we  were  gainers  in 
sort  beyond  the  gift  of  those  cities.  We  had  the  com 
pany,  great  part  of  the  way,  of  more  stone-pines  than 
we  had  seen  even  between  Naples  and  Eome,  here  gath 
ering  into  thick  woods,  with  the  light  beautiful  beneath 
the  spread  of  their  horizontal  boughs,  there  grouped  in 
classic  groves,  and  yonder  straying  off  in  twos  and 
threes.  We  had  the  canal  that  of  old  time  made  Pisa 
a  port  of  the  Mediterranean,  with  Leghorn  for  her 
servant  on  the  shore  (or,  if  it  was  not  this  canal,  it 
was  another  as  straight  and  long),  with  a  peasant  walk 
ing  beside  it,  under  a  light-green  umbrella,  in  the  show 
ers  which  threatened  our  start  but  spared  our  arrival. 
We  had  then  the  city,  with  its  domes  and  towers,  grown 
full  height  out  of  the  plain  through  which  the  Arno 
curves  in  the  stateliest  crescent  of  all  its  course. 

The  day  had  turned  finer  than  any  other  day  I  can 
now  think  of  in  my  whole  life,  and  I  was  once  more 

259 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

in  Pisa  without  the  care  for  its  history  or  art  or  even 
novelty  which  had  corroded  my  mind  in  former  visits. 
I  had  been  there  twice  before — once  in  1864,  when  I 
had  done  its  wonders  with  all  the  wonder  they  merited, 
and  again  in  1883,  when  I  had  lived  its  memories  on 
the  scene  of  its  manifold  and  mighty  experiences.  No 
distinct  light  from  that  learning  vexed  my  present 
vision,  but  an  agreeable  mist  of  association,  nothing 
certain,  nothing  tangible  remaining,  but  only  a  gentle 
vague  involving  everything,  in  which  I  could  possess 
my  soul  in  peace.  In  this  glimmer  I  recognized  a 
certain  cabman  as  having  been  waiting  there  from  the 
dawn  of  time,  with  his  dark-eyed  little  son,  to  make 
me  his  willing  captive  at  something  above  the  tariff 
rates,  but  destined  by  the  same  fate  to  serve  me  well, 
and  to  part  with  me  friends  at  the  close  of  the  day 
for  a  franc  more  than  the  excess  agreed  upon.  It  costs 
so  small  a  sum  to  corrupt  the  common  carrier  in  Italy 
that  I  hold  it  wrong  to  fail  of  any  chance,  and  this 
driver  had  not  only  a  horse  of  uncommon  qualities,  but 
he  spoke  a  beautiful  Tuscan,  and  he  had  his  Pisa  at 
his  fingers'  ends. 

We  were  of  one  mind  about  driving  without  delay 
to  the  famous  group  which  is  without  rival  on  the 
earth,  though  there  may  be  associated  edifices  in  the  red 
planet  Mars  that  surpass  the  Cathedral,  the  Leaning 
Tower,  the  Baptistery,  and  the  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa. 
What  genius  it  was  imagined  placing  them  in  the  pleas 
ant  meadow  where  they  sit,  just  beyond  the  city  streets, 
I  do  not  know,  but  it  was  inspiration  beyond  any  ef 
fect  of  mere  taste,  and  it  commanded  my  worship  as 
much  the  last  as  the  first  time.  The  meadow  still 
swims  round  them  and  breaks  in  a  foam  of  daisies  at 
their  feet;  for  I  take  it  that  it  is  always  mid- April 
there,  and  that  the  grass  is  as  green  and  the  sun  as 

260 


OVEE    AT    PISA 

yellow  on  it  as  the  afternoon  we  saw  it.  The  sacred 
edifices  are  as  golden  as  the  light  on  them,  and  there 
is  such  a  joyous  lift  in  the  air  that  it  is  a  wonder  they 
do  not  swing  loose  from  their  foundations  and  soar 
away  into  the  celestial  blue.  For  travellers  in  our 
willing  mood  there  was,  of  course,  the  predestined  cice 
rone  waiting  for  us  at  the  door  of  the  cathedral,  who 
would  fix  no  price  for  the  pleasure  he  was  born  to  do 
us,  yet  still  consented  to  take  more  than  twice  that  he 
ought  to  have  had  at  parting.  But  he  was  worth  the 
money ;  he  was  worth  quite  two  francs,  and,  though  he 
was  not  without  the  fault  of  his  calling  and  would  have 
cumbered  us  with  instruction,  I  will  not  blame  him,  for 
after  a  moment  I  perceived  that  his  intelligence  was 
such  that  I  might  safely  put  my  hands  in  my  pocket 
on  my  shut  guide-book  and  follow  him  from  point  to 
point  without  fear  of  missing  anything  worth  noting. 
Among  the  things  worthiest  noting,  I  saw,  as  if  I 
had  never  seen  them  before,  the  unforgettable,  forgot 
ten  Andrea  del  Sartos,  especially  the  St.  Agnes,  in 
whose  face  you  recognize  the  well-known  features  of 
the  painter's  wife,  but  with  a  gentler  look  than  they 
usually  wore  in  his  Madonnas,  perhaps  because  he 
happened  to  study  these  from  that  difficult  lady  when 
she  was  in  her  least  celestial  moods.  Besides  the  mas 
terpieces  of  other  masters,  there  is  a  most  noble  So- 
doma,  which  the  great  Napoleon  carried  away  to  Paris 
and  which  the  greater  French  people  afterward  re 
stored.  At  every  step  in  the  beautiful  temple  you 
may  well  pause,  for  it  abounds  in  pictures  and  sculpt 
ures,  the  least  of  which  would  enrich  St.  Peter's  at 
Rome  beyond  the  proudest  effect  of  its  poverty-stricken 
grandeur.  Ghirlandajo,  Michelangelo,  Gaddo  Gaddi, 
John  of  Bologna — the  names  came  back  to  me  out  of  a 
past  of  my  own  almost  as  remote  as  theirs,  while  our 

261 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

guide  repeated  them,  in  their  relation  to  the  sculptures 
or  pictures  or  architecture,  with  those  of  lesser  lights 
of  art,  and  that  school  of  Giotto,  of  all  whose  frescos 
once  covering  its  walls  the  fire  of  three  hundred  years 
ago  has  left  a  few  figures  clinging  to  one  of  the  pillars, 
faint  and  uncertain  as  the  memories  of  my  own  form 
er  visits  to  the  church.  I  did,  indeed,  remember  me 
of  an  old  bronze  lamp,  by  Vincenzo  Possenti,  hang 
ing  from  the  roof,  which  I  now  revered  the  third  time, 
at  intervals  of  twenty  years;  from  its  oscillation  Ga 
lileo  is  said  to  have  got  the  notion  of  the  pendulum; 
but  it  is  now  tied  back  with  a  wire,  being  no  longer 
needed  for  such  an  inspiration.  Mostly  in  this  last 
visit  I  took  Pisa  as  lightly  as  at  the  first,  when,  as  I 
have  noted  from  the  printed  witness,  I  was  gayly  in 
different  to  the  claims  of  her  objects  of  interest.  If 
they  came  in  my  way,  I  looked  at  them,  but  I  did  not 
put  myself  much  about  for  them.  I  rested  mostly  in 
the  twilight  of  old  associations,  trusting  to  the  guid 
ance  of  our  cicerone,  whom,  in  some  form  or  under 
some  name,  the  reader  will  find  waiting  for  him  at  the 
cathedral  door  as  we  did.  But  I  have  since  recurred 
to  the  record  of  my  second  visit  in  1883,  with  amaze 
ment  at  the  exact  knowledge  of  events  shown  there, 
which  became,  in  1908,  all  a  blur  of  dim  conjecture. 
It  appears  that  I  was  then  acquainted  with  much 
more  Pisan  history  than  any  other  author  I  have 
found  own  to.  I  had  also  surprising  adventures  of 
different  kinds,  such  as  my  poorer  experience  of  the 
present  cannot  parallel.  I  find,  for  instance,  that  in 
1883  I  gave  a  needy  crone  in  the  cathedral  a  franc 
instead  of  the  piece  of  five  centimes  which  I  meant 
for  her,  and  that  the  lamp  of  Galileo  did  nothing  to 
light  the  gloom  into  which  this  error  plunged  my  spirit. 
It  appears  to  have  jaundiced  my  view  of  the  whole 

202 


OVEE    AT    PISA 

cathedral,  which  I  did  not  find  at  all  comparable  to 
that  of  Siena,  whereas  in  1908  I  thought  it  all  beauti 
ful.  This  may  have  been  because  I  was  so  newly  from 
the  ugliness  of  the  Koman  churches;  though  I  felt, 
as  I  had  felt  before,  that  the  whole  group  of  sacred 
edifices  at  Pisa  was  too  suggestive  of  decorative  pastry 
and  confectionery.  ISTo  more  than  at  the  second  view 
of  it  did  I  now  attempt  the  ascent  of  the  Leaning 
Tower;  I  had  discharged  this  duty  for  life  when  I 
first  saw  it;  with  my  seventy-one  years  upon  me,  I 
was  not  willing  to  climb  its  winding  stairs,  and  I 
doubted  if  I  could  keep  it  from  falling,  as  I  then  did, 
by  inclining  myself  the  other  way.  I  resolved  that  I 
would  leave  this  to  the  new  -  comer ;  but  I  gladly 
followed  our  cicerone  across  the  daisied  green  from 
the  cathedral  to  the  baptistery,  where  I  found  the 
famous  echo  waiting  to  welcome  me  back,  and  greet  me 
with  its  angelic  sweetness,  when  the  custodian  who 
has  it  in  charge  appealed  to  it ;  though  its  voice  seemed 
to  have  been  weakened  and  coarsened  in  its  forced  re 
plies  to  some  rude  Americans  there,  who  shouted  out 
to  it  and  mocked  at  it.  One  wished  to  ask  them  if  they 
did  not  know  that  this  echo  was  sacred,  and  that  their 
challenges  of  it  were  a  species  of  sacrilege.  But  doubt 
less  that  would  not  have  availed  to  silence  them.  By- 
and-by  they  went  away,  and  then  we  were  aware  of  an 
interesting  group  of  people  by  the  font  near  the  lovely 
Lombardic  pulpit  of  Nicola  Pisano.  They  were  peas 
ants,  by  their  dress — a  young  father  and  mother  and  a 
little  girl  or  two,  and  then  a  gentle,  elderly  woman, 
with  a  baby  in  her  arms,  at  which  she  looked  proudly 
down.  They  were  in  their  simple  best,  and  they  had 
good  Tuscan  faces,  full  of  kindness.  I  ventured  some 
propitiatory  coppers  with  the  children,  and,  when  the 

old  woman  made  them  thank  me,  I  thought  I  could  not 

263 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

be  mistaken  and  I  ventured  further :  "  You  are  the 
grandmother  ?" 

"  Yes,  signor,"  she  answered ;  and  then  we  had  some 
talk  about  the  age  and  the  beauty  of  the  baby,  which 
I  declared  wonderful  for  both,  in  praises  loud  enough 
for  the  father  and  mother  to  hear.  After  that  they 
seemed  to  hold  a  family  council,  from  which  I  thought 
it  respectful  to  stand  apart  until  the  grandmother  spoke 
to  me  again. 

I  did  not  understand,  and  I  appealed  to  our  guide 
for  help. 

"  She  wishes  you  to  be  godfather  to  the  child." 

I  had  never  yet  been  a  godfather,  but  I  had  the 
belief  that  it  brought  grave  responsibilities,  which  in 
the  very  casual  and  impermanent  circumstances  I  did 
not  see  how  I  was  to  meet.  Yet  how  to  refuse  without 
wounding  these  kind  people  who  had  so  honored  me 
I  did  not  know  until  a  sudden  inspiration  came  to  my 
rescue. 

"  Tell  them,"  I  said,  "  and  be  careful  to  make  them 
understand,  that  I  am  very  grateful  and  very  sorry, 
but  that  I  am  a  Protestant,  and  that  I  suppose  I  can 
not,  for  that  reason,  be  godfather  to  their  child." 

He  explained,  and  they  received  my  thanks  and  re 
grets  with  smiling  acquiescence;  and  just  then  a  very 
stout  little  old  priest  (who  has  baptized  nearly  all  the 
babies  in  Pisa  for  fifty  years)  came  in,  and  the  baptism 
proceeded  without  my  intervention.  But  I  remained, 
somehow,  disappointed;  it  would  have  been  pleasant 
to  leave  a  godchild  behind  me  there  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  Pisa ;  to  have  sent  him  from  time  to  time  some 
little  remembrance  of  this  remote  America,  and,  per 
haps,  when  he  grew  up  and  came  to  Pisa,  and  learned 
the  art  of  the  statuary,  to  have  had  from  him  a  Leaning 

Tower  which  he  had  cut  in  alabaster  for  me.     I  was 

264 


OVER    AT    PISA 

taking  it  for  granted  he  was  a  boy,  but  he  may  not  have 
been;  there  is  always  that  chance. 

If  I  had  been  alone,  I  suppose  I  should  still  have 
gone  into  the  Campo  Santo,  from  mere  force  of  habit; 
I  always  go,  in  Pisa,  but  I  had  now  with  me  clearer 
eyes  for  art  than  mine  are,  and  I  wished  to  have  their 
light  on  the  great  allegories  and  histories  frescoed  round 
the  cloisters,  and  test  with  them  the  objects  of  my  tacit 
and  explicit  reserves  and  misgivings.  I  needed  such 
eyes,  and  even  some  such  powerful  glasses  as  would 
have  pierced  through  the  faded  and  wasted  pictures 
and  shown  them  at  least  as  I  had  first  seen  them. 
They  were  then  in  such  reasonable  disrepair  as  one 
might  expect  after  three  or  four  centuries,  but  in  the 
last  thirty  years  a  ruinous  waste  has  set  in  before 
which  not  only  the  colors  have  faded,  but  the  sur 
faces  have  crumbled  under  the  colors;  and  as  yet  no 
man  knows  how  to  stop  the  ravage.  I  think  I  have 
read  that  it  is  caused  by  a  germ;  but,  if  not,  the  loss 
is  the  same,  and  until  a  parasite  for  the  germ  is  found 
the  loss  must  go  on,  and  the  work  of  Giotto,  of  Be- 
nozzo  Gozzoli,  of  Memmi,  must  perish  with  that  of  the 
Orgagnas,  which  may  indeed  go,  for  all  me.  Bible  sto 
ries,  miracles,  allegories — they  are  all  hasting  to  decay, 
and  it  can  be  but  a  few  years  until  they  shall  vanish 
like  the  splendors  of  the  dawn  which  they  typify  in  art. 

In  some  things  the  ruin  is  not  altogether  to  be  re 
gretted.  It  has  softened  certain  loathsome  details  of 
the  charnel  facts  portrayed,  and  in  other  pictures  the 
torment  and  anguish  of  the  lost  souls  are  no  longer  so 
painful  as  the  old  painters  ascertained  them.  Hell  in 
the  Campo  Santo  is  not  now  the  hell  of  other  days, 
just  as  the  hell  of  Christian  doctrine  is  not  the  hell  it 
used  to  be.  Death  and  the  world  are  indeed  immiti 
gable;  the  corpses  in  their  coffins  are  as  terrifying  to 

265 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

the  gay  lords  and  ladies  who  come  suddenly  upon  them 
as  ever  they  were,  though  doubtless  of  no  more  lasting 
effect  with  such  sinners  than  they  would  be  nowadays. 
But  what  one  must  chiefly  lament  is  the  waste  of  the 
whole  quaint  and  charming  series  of  Scripture  incidents 
by  Benozzo  Gozzoli.  This  is  indeed  most  lamentable, 
and  after  realizing  the  loss  one  is  only  a  little  heart 
ened  by  the  gayety  of  certain  grieving  widows,  sitting 
in  marble  for  monuments  to  their  husbands  at  several 
points  under  the  arcades.  What  cheer  they  might  have 
brought  us  was  impaired  by  the  sight  of  the  sarcopha- 
guses  and  the  other  antiques  against  the  walls,  which 
inflicted  an  inappeasable  ache  for  the  city  where  such 
things  abound,  and  brought  our  refluent  Homesickness 
back  full  tide  upon  us.  More  than  once  Pisa  elsewhere 
did  us  the  like  involuntary  unkindness;  she,  too,  is  yel 
low  and  mellow  like  Rome,  and  she  had  moments  of 
the  Piazza  NTavona  and  the  Piazza  di  Spagna  which 
were  poignant.  But  she  had  moments  of  her  own  when 
Rome  could  not  rival  her — such,  for  instance,  as  that 
when  she  invited  us  from  the  perishing  frescos  of  her 
Campo  Santo  to  turn  our  eyes  on  the  flower-strewn 
field  of  death  which  the  cloisters  surrounded,  and 
where  in  the  hallowed  earth  which  her  galleys  brought 
from  Jerusalem  her  children,  in  their  several  turns, 
used  to  sleep  so  sweetly  and  safely. 

The  afternoon  sunlight  was  prolonging  the  day  there 
as  well  as  it  could,  and  we  should  have  liked  to  linger 
with  it  as  late  as  it  would,  but  there  were  other  places 
in  Pisa  calling  us,  and  we  must  go.  We  found  our 
driver,  and  his  black-eyed  boy  beside  him  on  the  box, 
waiting  for  us  at  the  cathedral  door,  and  we  seem  to 
have  left  it  pretty  much  to  them  where  we  should  go. 
They  decided  us,  if  we  really  left  it  to  them,  mainly  for 
the  outside  of  things,  so  that  we  might  see  as  much 

266 


OVER    AT    PISA 

of  Pisa  as  possible;  but  it  appears  to  have  been  their 
notion  that  we  ought  to  visit,  at  least,  the  inside  of  the 
Church  of  the  Knights  of  St.  Stephen.  I  do  not  know 
whether  I  protested  or  not  that  I  had  abundantly  seen 
this  already,  but,  at  any  rate,  I  am  now  glad  that  they 
took  us  there.  As  every  traveller  will  pretend  to  re 
member,  the  main  business  of  the  knights  was  to  fight 
the  Barbary  pirates,  and  the  main  business  of  their 
church  is  now  to  serve  as  a  repository  of  the  prows  of 
the  galleys  and  the  flags  which  they  took  in  their  bat 
tles  with  the  infidels.  There  are  other  monuments  of 
their  valor,  but  by  all  odds  the  flags  will  be  the  most 
interesting  to  the  American  visitor,  because  of  the  start 
that  many  of  them  will  give  him  by  their  resemblance 
to  our  own  banner,  with  their  red-and-white  stripes, 
which  the  eye  follows  in  vivid  expectation  of  finding 
the  blue  field  of  stars  in  the  upper  left-hand  corner. 
It  never  does  find  this,  and  that  is  the  sufficient  reason 
for  holding  to  the  theory  that  our  flag  was  copied  from 
the  armorial  bearings  of  the  Washington  family,  and 
not  taken  from  the  standard  of  those  paynim  corsairs; 
but  there  is  poignant  instant  when  one  trembles. 

We  viewed,  of  course,  the  exterior  of  the  edifice 
standing  on  the  site  of  the  Tower  of  Famine,  where 
the  cruel  archbishop  starved  the  Count  Ugolino  and 
his  grandchildren  to  death ;  and  we  drove  by  the  build 
ings  of  Pisa's  famous  university,  which  we  afterward 
fancied  rather  pervaded  the  city  with  the  young  and 
ardent  life  of  its  students.  It  is  no  great  architectural 
presence,  but  there  are  churches  and  palaces  to  make 
up  for  that.  Everywhere  you  chance  on  them  in  the 
narrow  streets  and  the  ample  piazzas,  but  the  palaces 
follow  mostly  the  stately  curve  of  the  Arno,  where  some 
of  them  have  condescended  to  the  office  of  hotels,  and 
where,  I  believe,  one  might  live  in  economy  and  com- 

267 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

fort ;  or,  at  any  rate,  I  should  like  to  try.  It  would  get 
rather  warm  there  in  May,  and  July  and  August  are 
not  to  be  thought  of,  but  all  the  other  year  it  would  be 
divine,  with  such  a  prospect  as  can  hardly  be  matched 
anywhere  else.  Pisa  used  once  to  be  the  resort  of  many 
seeking  health  or  warmth,  and  for  mere  climate  it  ought 
again  to  come  into  favor.  Probably  there  is  reasonably 
accessible  society  there,  and,  as  the  Livornese  believe, 
there  is  at  least  excellent  opera.  The  time  might  grow 
long,  but  ought  not  to  be  very  heavy,  and  there  is  a 
cafe,  at  the  very  finest  point  of  the  curve,  where  you 
can  get  an  excellent  cup  of  tea.  Whether  this  attests 
the  resort  or  sojourn  of  many  English,  or  the  growth  of 
the  tea-habit  among  the  Pisans,  I  cannot  say,  but  that 
cafe  is  very  charming,  with  students  standing  about 
in  it  and  admiring  the  ladies  who  come  in  to  buy 
pastry,  and  who  do  not  suppose  there  is  any  one  there 
to  look  at  them.  I  am  sure  that  the  handsome  mother 
with  the  pretty  daughter  who  lingered  so  long  over 
their  choice  of  little  cakes  could  not  have  imagined  any 
one  was  looking,  or  she  would  at  once  have  taken  mac 
aroons  and  hurried  away:  at  that  cafe  they  have  mac 
aroons  almost  three  inches  across,  and  delicious. 

The  whole  keeping  was  so  pleasant  that  we  hated 
to  leave  it  to  the  lengthening  shadows  from  the  other 
shore,  but  we  were  to  drive  down  the  Arno  into  the 
promenade  that  follows  it,  I  do  not  know  how  far; 
with  the  foolish  greed  of  travel,  we  wanted  to  get  in 
all  of  Pisa  that  we  could,  even  if  we  tore  ourselves 
from  its  most  tempting  morsel.  But  it  was  all  joy, 
and  I  should  like,  at  this  moment,  to  be  starting  on  that 
enchanting  drive  again.  I  leave  the  reader  to  imagine 
the  lovely  scenery  for  himself ;  almost  any  of  my  many 
backgrounds  will  serve;  but  I  will  supply  him  with 
a  piece  of  statistics  such  as  does  not  fall  in  everybody's 

268 


OVER    AT    PISA 

way.  We  noted  the  great  number  of  anglers  who 
lined  the  opposite  bank,  with  no  appearance  of  catch 
ing  anything,  and  I  asked  our  driver  if  they  never 
happened  to  get  a  bite.  "  ISTot  in  the  daytime,"  he 
explained,  compassionately,  "but  as  soon  as  the  even 
ing  comes  they  get  all  the  fish  they  want." 

I  could  pour  out  on  the  reader  many  other  Pisan 
statistics,  but  they  would  be  at  second-hand.  After 
long  vicissitude,  the  city  is  again  almost  as  prosperous 
as  she  was  in  the  heyday  of  her  national  greatness, 
when  she  had  commerce  with  every  Levantine  and 
Oriental  port.  We  ourselves  saw  a  silk  factory  pour 
ing  forth  a  tide  of  pretty  girls  from  their  work  at  the 
end  of  the  day;  there  was  no  ruin  or  disrepair  notice 
able  anywhere,  and  the  whole  city  was  as  clean  as 
Eome,  with  streets  paved  with  broad,  smooth  flagstones 
where  you  never  missed  the  rubber  tires  which  your 
carriage  failed  of.  But  Pisa  had  a  great  air  of  resting, 
of  taking  life  easily  after  a  tumultuous  existence  in 
the  long  past  which  she  had  put  behind  her.  Through 
out  the  Middle  Ages  she  was  always  fighting  foreign 
foes  without  her  walls  or  domestic  factions  within,  now 
the  Saracens  wherever  she  could  find  them  or  they  could 
find  her,  now  the  Normans  in  Naples,  now  the  Cor- 
sicans  and  Sardinians,  now  Lucca,  now  Genoa,  now 
Florence,  and  now  all  three.  Her  wars  with  these  re 
publics  were  really  incessant;  they  were  not  so  much 
wars  as  battles  in  one  long  war,  with  a  peace  occasion 
ally  made  during  the  five  or  ten  or  fifteen  years,  which 
was  no  better  than  a  truce.  When  she  fell  under  the 
Medici,  together  with  her  enemy  Florence,  she  shared 
the  death-quiet  the  tyrants  brought  that  prepotent  re 
public,  and  it  was  the  Medicean  strength  probably 
which  saved  her  from  Lucca  and  Genoa,  though  it  left 
them  to  continue  republics  down  to  the  nineteenth 

269 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

century.  She  was  at  one  time  an  oligarchy,  and  at  an 
other  a  democracy,  and  at  another  the  liege  of  this 
prince  or  that  priest,  but  she  was  never  out  of  trouble 
as  long  as  she  possessed  independence  or  the  shadow 
of  it.  In  the  safe  hold  of  united  Italy  she  now  sits 
by  her  Arno  and  draws  long,  deep  breaths,  which  you 
may  almost  hear  as  you  pass;  and  I  hope  the  pros 
pect  of  increasing  prosperity  will  not  tempt  her  to  work 
too  hard.  It  does  not  look  as  if  it  would. 

We  were  getting  a  little  anxious,  but  not  very  anx 
ious,  for  that  one  cannot  be  in  Pisa,  about  our  train 
back  to  Leghorn;  though  we  did  not  wish  to  go,  we 
did  not  wish  to  be  left;  but  our  driver  reassured 
us,  and  would  not  let  us  shirk  the  duty  of  seeing  the 
house  where  Galileo  was  born.  We  found  it  in  a  long 
street  on  the  thither  side  of  the  river,  and  in  such  a 
poor  quarter  that  our  driver  could  himself  afford  to 
live  only  a  few  doors  from  it.  As  if  they  had  expected 
him  to  pass  about  this  time,  his  wife  and  his  five  chil 
dren  were  sitting  at  his  door  and  playing  before  it.  He 
proudly  pointed  them  out  with  his  whip,  and  one  of 
the  little  ones  followed  on  foot  far  enough  to  levy 
tribute.  They  were  sufficiently  comely  children,  but 
blond,  whereas  the  boy  on  the  box  was  both  black-eyed 
and  black-haired.  When  we  required  an  explanation 
of  the  mystery,  the  father  easily  solved  it;  this  boy 
was  the  child  of  his  first  wife.  If  there  were  other 
details,  I  have  forgotten  them,  but  we  made  our  ro 
mance  to  the  effect  that  the  boy,  to  whose  beautiful 
eyes  we  now  imputed  a  lurking  sadness,  was  not  happy 
with  his  step-mother,  and  that  he  took  refuge  from  her 
on  the  box  with  his  father.  They  seemed  very  good 
comrades ;  the  boy  had  shared  with  his  father  the  small 
cakes  we  had  given  him  at  the  cafe.  At  the  station, 

in  recognition  of  his  hapless  lot,  I  gave  him  half  a 

270 


OVER    AT    PISA 

franc.  By  that  time  his  father  was  radiant  from  the 
small  extortion  I  had  suffered  him  to  practice  with  me, 
and  he  bade  the  boy  thank  me,  which  he  did  so  charm 
ingly  that  I  almost,  but  not  quite,  gave  him  another  < 
half  -  franc.  Now  I  am  sorry  I  did  not.  Pisa  was 
worth  it. 


IX 

BACK  AT  GENOA 

THEEE  is  an  old  saying,  probably  as  old  as  Genoa's 
first  loot  of  her  step-sister  republic,  "  If  you  want  to 
see  Pisa,  you  must  go  to  Genoa,"  which  may  have  ob 
scurely  governed  us  in  our  purpose  of  stopping  there 
on  our  way  up  out  of  Italy.  We  could  not  have  too 
much  of  Pisa,  as  apparently  the  Genoese  could  not; 
but  before  our  journey  ended  I  decided  that  they 
would  have  thought  twice  before  plundering  Pisa  if 
they  had  been  forced  to  make  their  forays  by  means  of 
the  present  railroad  connection  between  the  two  cities. 
At  least  there  would  have  been  but  one  of  the  many 
wars  of  murder  and  rapine  between  the  republics,  and 
that  would  have  been  the  first.  After  a  single  experi 
ence  of  the  eighty  tunnels  on  that  line,  with  the  per 
petually  recurring  necessity  of  putting  down  and  put 
ting  up  the  car-window,  no  army  would  have  repeated 
the  invasion ;  and,  though  we  might  now  be  without  that 
satirical  old  saying,  mankind  would,  on  the  whole,  have 
been  the  gainer.  As  it  was,  the  enemies  could  luxuri 
ously  go  and  come  in  their  galleys  and  enjoy  the  fresh 
sea-breezes  both  ways,  instead  of  stifling  in  the  dark 
and  gasping  for  breath  as  they  came  into  the  light, 
while  their  train  ran  in  and  out  under  the  serried 
peaks  that  form  the  Mediterranean  shore.  I  myself 
wished  to  take  a  galley  from  Leghorn,  or  even  a  small 

272 


BACK    AT    GENOA 

steamer,  but  I  was  overruled  by  less  hardy  but  more  ob 
durate  spirits,  and  so  we  took  the  Florentine  express 
at  Pisa,  where  we  changed  cars. 

The  Italian  government  had  providently  arranged 
that  the  car  we  changed  into  should  be  standing  be 
yond  the  station  in  the  dash  of  an  unexpected  shower, 
and  that  it  should  be  provided  with  steps  so  high  and 
steep,  with  Italian  ladies  standing  all  over  them  and 
sticking  their  umbrellas  into  the  faces  of  American 
citizens  trying  to  get  in  after  them,  that  it  was  a  feat 
of  something  like  mountain-climbing  to  reach  the  cor 
ridor,  and  then  of  daring-do  to  secure  a  compartment. 
Though  a  collectivist,  with  a  firm  belief  in  the  gov 
ernment  ownership  of  railroads  everywhere,  I  might 
have  been  tempted  at  times  in  Italy  to  abjure  my  creed 
if  I  had  not  always  reflected  that  the  state  there  had 
just  come  into  possession  of  the  roads,  with  all  their 
capitalistic  faults  of  management  and  outwear  of 
equipment  which  it  would  doubtless  soon  reform  and 
repair.  I  venture  to  suggest  now,  however,  that  its 
prime  duty  is  to  have  platforms  level  with  the  car- 
doors,  as  they  are  in  England,  and  not  to  let  Italian 
ladies  stand  in  the  doorways  with  their  umbrellas.  I 
do  not  insist  that  it  shall  impose  silence  and  sobriety 
upon  a  party  of  young  French  people  in  the  next 
compartment,  but  I  do  think  it  should  remove  those 
mountains  back  from  the  sea  so  that  the  trains  carrying 
cultivated  Americans  can  run  along  the  open  shore  the 
whole  way  to  Genoa.  Pending  this,  it  should  provide 
strong  and  watchful  employees  to  lower  and  raise  the 
windows  at  the  mouth  of  each  of  the  eighty  tunnels  in 
every  car.  I  do  not  demand  that  it  shall  change  the 
site  of  the  station  in  Genoa  so  that  it  shall  not  always 
be  the  city's  whole  length  away  from  the  hotel  you 
have  chosen,  but  I  think  this  would  be  a  desirable  im- 

18  273 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHEKS 

provement,  especially  if  it  is  after  dark  when  you  ar 
rive  and  raining  a  peculiarly  cold,  disagreeable  rain. 

That  rain  was  very  disappointing;  for,  in  the  in 
tervals  between  tunnels,  we  had  fancied,  from  the  few 
brief  glimpses  we  caught  of  the  landscape,  that  the 
April  so  backward  elsewhere  in  Italy  was  forwarder 
in  the  blossomed  trees  along  the  eastern  Riviera;  and 
we  learned  at  our  hotel  that  the  steam-heat  had  just 
been  taken  off  because  the  day  had  been  so  hot  and 
dry,  though  the  evening  was  now  so  cold  and  wet.  It 
was  fitfully  put  on  and  off  during  the  chilly  week 
that  ensued,  though  in  our  fifth-story  garden,  to  which 
we  sometimes  resorted,  there  was  a  mildness  in  the 
air  that  was  absent  in-doors.  The  hotel  itself  was  dis 
appointing;  any  hotel  would  be  after  our  hotel  in  Leg 
horn;  and,  though  there  was  the  good-will  of  former 
days,  there  was  not  the  former  effect.  The  corridors 
crashed  and  clattered  all  day  long  and  well  into  the 
night  with  the  gayety  of  some  cheap  incursion  of  Ger 
man  tourists,  who  seemed,  indeed,  to  fill  the  whole  city 
with  their  clamor.  They  were  given  a  long  table  to 
themselves,  and  when  they  were  set  at  it  and  began  to 
ply  their  knives  and  tongues  the  din  was  deafening. 
That  would  not  have  been  so  bad  if  they  had  not  been 
so  plain,  or  if,  when  they  happened,  in  a  young  girl  or 
two,  to  be  pretty,  they  had  not  guttled  and  guzzled  so 
like  the  plainest  of  their  number.  One  such  pretty  girl 
was  really  beautiful,  with  a  bloom  perhaps  already  too 
rich,  which,  as  she  abandoned  herself  to  her  meat  and 
drink,  reddened  downward  over  her  lily  neck  and  up 
ward  to  her  golden  hair,  past  the  brows  under  which 
her  blue,  blue  eyes  protruded  painfully,  all  in  a  fright 
ful  prophecy  of  what  she  would  be  when  the  bud  of 
her  spring  should  be  the  full-blown  cabbage-rose  of  her 
summer. 

274 


BACK    AT    GENOA 

I  dare  say  those  people  were  not  typical  of  their 
civilization.  Probably  modern  enterprise  makes  travel 
easy  to  sorts  and  conditions  of  Germans  who  once 
would  not  have  dreamed  of  leaving  home,  and  now 
tempts  these  rude  Teutonic  hordes  over  or  under  the 
Alps  and  pours  them  out  on  the  Peninsula,  far  out- 
deluging  the  once-prevalent  Anglo-Saxons.  The  first 
night  there  was  an  Englishman  at  dinner,  but  he  van 
ished  after  breakfast;  the  next  day  an  Italian  officer 
was  at  lunch,  but  he  came  no  more ;  we  were  the  only 
Americans,  and  now  we  had  the  sole  society  of  those 
German  tourists.  Perhaps  it  was  national  vanity,  but 
I  could  not  at  the  moment  think  of  an  equal  number 
of  our  fellow-citizens  of  any  condition  who  would  not 
have  been  less  molestively  happy.  One  forgot  what 
one  was  eating,  and  left  the  table  bruised  as  if  phys 
ically  beaten  upon  by  those  sound-waves  and  sight- 
waves.  But  our  companions  must  have  made  them 
selves  acceptable  to  the  city  they  had  come  to  visit; 
Genoa  is  very  noisy,  and  they  could  not  be  heard  above 
the  trams  and  omnibuses,  and  in  the  streets  they  could 
not  be  seen  at  table ;  when  I  ventured  to  note  to  a  sac 
ristan,  here  and  there,  that  there  seemed  to  be  a  great 
many  Germans  in  town,  the  fact  apparently  roused 
nothing  of  the  old-time  Italian  antipathy  for  the 
Tedeschi.  Severally  they  may  have  been  cultivated 
and  interesting  people ;  and  that  blooming  maiden  may 
really  have  been  the  Blue  Flower  of  Romance  that 
she  looked  before  she  began  to  dine. 

We  were  entering  upon  our  third  view  of  Genoa  with 
the  zest  of  our  first,  and  I  was  glad  to  find  there  were 
so  many  things  I  had  left  unseen  or  had  forgotten. 
First  of  all  the  Campo  Santo  allured  me,  and  I  went 
at  once  to  verify  the  impressions  of  former  years  in  a 

tram  following  the  bed  of  a  torrential  river  which  was 

275 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

now  dry  except  in  the  pools  where  the  laundresses  were 
at  work,  picturesquely  as  always  in  Italy.  But  here 
they  were  not  alone  the  worthy  theme  of  art;  their 
husbands  and  fathers,  and  perhaps  even  their  fiances, 
were  at  work  with  them,  not,  indeed,  washing  the  linen, 
but  spreading  to  dry  it  in  snowy  spaces  over  the  clean 
gravel.  On  either  bank  of  the  stream  newly  finished 
or  partly  finished  apartment-houses  testified  to  the  pros 
perity  of  the  city,  which  seemed  to  be  growing  every 
where,  and  it  would  not  be  too  bold  to  imagine  this  a 
favorite  quarter  because  of  its  convenience  to  the  Cam- 
po  Santo.  Already  in  the  early  forenoon  our  train 
was  carrying  people  to  that  popular  resort,  who  seemed 
to  be  intending  to  spend  the  day  there.  Some  had 
wreaths  and  flowers,  and  were  clearly  sorrowing  friends 
of  the  dead;  others,  with  their  guide-books,  were  as 
plainly  mere  sight-seers,  and  these  were  Italians  as  well 
as  strangers,  gratifying  what  seems  the  universal  pas 
sion  for  cemeteries.  In  our  own  villages  the  grave 
yards  are  the  favorite  Sunday  haunt  of  the  young  peo 
ple  and  the  scene  of  their  love-making ;  and  it  has  been 
the  complaint  of  English  visitors  to  our  cities  that  the 
first  thing  their  hosts  took  them  to  see  was  the  ceme 
tery.  They  did  not  realize  that  this  was  often  the  thing 
best  worth  showing  them,  for  our  feeble  aesthetic  in 
stincts  found  their  first  expression  in  the  attempt  to 
dignify  or  beautify  the  homes  of  the  dead.  Each 
mourner  grieved  in  marble  as  fitly  as  he  knew  how, 
and,  if  there  was  sometimes  a  rivalry  in  vaults  and 
shafts,  the  effect  was  of  a  collective  interest  which  all 
could  feel.  Sometimes  it  was  touching,  sometimes  it 
was  revolting;  and  in  Italy  it  is  not  otherwise.  The 
Campo  Santo  of  San  Miniato  at  Florence,  the  Campo 
Santo  at  Bologna,  the  Campo  Santo  wherever  else  you 
find  it,  you  find  of  one  quality  with  the  Campo  Santo 

276 


WASHING    IX    THE    RIVER,    GENOA 


BACK    AT    GENOA 

at  Genoa.  It  makes  you  the  helpless  confidant  of 
family  pride,  of  bruised  and  lacerated  love,  of  fond 
aspiration,  of  religious  longing,  of  striving  faith,  of 
foolish  vanity  and  vulgar  pretence,  but,  if  the  traveller 
would  read  the  local  civilization  aright,  he  cannot  do 
better  than  go  to  study  it  there. 

My  third  experience  of  the  Genoese  Campo  Santo 
was  different  only  in  quantity  from  the  first  and  sec 
ond.  There  seemed  more  of  the  things,  better  and 
worse,  but  the  increasing  witness  was  of  the  art  which 
rendered  the  fact  with  unsparing  realism,  sometimes 
alloyed  with  allegory  and  sometimes  not,  but  always 
outright,  literal,  strong,  rank.  The  hundreds  of  groups, 
reliefs,  statues,  busts;  the  long  aisles  where  the  dead 
are  sealed  in  the  tableted  shelves  of  the  wall,  like  the 
dead  in  the  catacombs,  the  ample  space  of  open  ground 
enclosed  by  the  cloisters  and  set  thick  with  white  cross 
es,  are  all  dominated  by  a  colossal  Christ  which,  in  my 
fancy,  remains  of  very  significant  effect.  It  is  as  if 
no  presence  less  mighty  and  impressive  could  centre  in 
itself  the  multitudinous  passions,  wills,  and  hopes  ex 
pressed  in  those  incongruous  monuments  and  reduce 
them  to  that  unity  of  meaning  which  one  cannot  deny 
them. 

The  Campo  Santo  of  Genoa  is  a  mortuary  gloss  of 
Genoese  history:  of  the  long  succession  of  civic  strifes 
and  foreign  wars  common  to  all  the  Italian  republics, 
now  pacified  at  last  by  a  spirit  of  unity,  of  brother 
hood.  At  Genoa,  more  than  anywhere  else  in  Italy 
except  Milan,  you  are  aware  of  the  North — its  strenu- 
ousness,  its  enterprise,  its  restless  outstretching  for 
worlds  beyond  itself.  Columbus  came  with  the  gift 
of  a  New  World  in  his  hand,  and,  in  the  fulness  of 
.time,  Mazzini  came  with  the  gift  of  a  Newer  World 
in  his  hand:  the  realization  of  Christ  in  the  ideal  of 

277 


EOMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

duties  without  which  the  old  ideal  of  rights  is  heathen 
and  helpless.  Against  the  rude  force  of  Genoa,  the 
aristocratic  beauty  of  such  a  place  as  Pisa  was  noth 
ing;  only  Florence  and  Venice  might  vie  with  her. 
But  she  had  not  the  inspiration  of  Florence,  her  art, 
her  literature;  the  dialect  in  which  she  uttered  her 
self  is  harsh  and  crabbed,  and  no  poet  known  beyond 
it  has  breathed  his  soul  into  it;  her  architecture  was 
first  the  Gothic  from  over  the  Alps,  and  then  of  the 
Renaissance  which  built  the  palaces  of  her  merchants 
in  a  giant  bulk  and  of  a  brutal  grandeur.  She  had 
not  the  political  genius  of  Venice,  the  oligarchic  in 
stinct  of  self-preservation  from  popular  misgovernment 
and  princely  aggression.  Her  story  is  the  usual  Ital 
ian  story  of  a  people  jealous  of  each  other,  and,  in  their 
fear  of  a  native  tyrant,  impatiently  calling  in  one 
foreign  tyrant  after  another  and  then  furiously  ex 
pelling  him.  When  she  would  govern  herself,  she  first 
made  her  elective  chief  magistrate  Doge  for  life,  and 
then  for  two  years;  under  both  forms  she  submitted 
and  rebelled  at  will  from  1359  till  1802,  when,  after 
having  accepted  the  French  notion  of  freedom  from 
Bonaparte,  she  enjoyed  a  lion's  share  of  his  vicissitudes. 
For  a  hundred  years  before  that  the  warring  powers 
had  fought  over  her  in  their  various  quarrels  about 
successions,  and  she  ought  to  have  been  well  inured  to 
suffering  when,  in  1800,  the  English  and  the  Austrians 
besieged  her  French  garrison,  and  twenty  thousand  of 
her  people  starved  in  a  cause  not  their  own.  The  Eng 
lish  restored  the  Doges,  and  the  Republic  of  Genoa 
fell  at  last  nineteen  years  after  the  Republic  of  Venice 
and  three  hundred  years  after  the  Republic  of  Flor 
ence.  She  was  given  to  Piedmont  in  1815  by  the  Con 
gress  of  Vienna,  and  she  has  formed  part  of  Italy  ever 
since  the  unification.  I  believe  that  now  she  is  of 

278 


REALISTIC    GROUP    IN    THE    CAMPO    SANTO 


THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


BACK    AT    GENOA 

rather  radical  opinions  in  politics,  though  the  book 
seller  who  found  on  his  shelves  a  last  copy  of  the  inter 
esting  sketch  of  Genoese  history  which  I  have  profited 
by  so  little,  said  that  the  Genoese  had  been  disappointed 
in  the  Socialists,  lately  in  power,  and  were  now  voting 
Clerical  by  a  large  majority. 

The  fact  may  have  been  colored  by  the  book-seller's 
feelings.  If  the  Clericals  are  in  superior  force,  the 
clerics  are  not:  nowhere  in  Italy  did  I  see  so  few 
priests.  All  other  orders  of  people  throng  the  narrow, 
noisy,  lofty  streets,  wrhere  the  crash  of  feet  and  hoofs 
and  wheels  beats  to  the  topmost  stories  of  the  palaces 
towering  overhead  in  their  stony  grandiosity.  Every 
where  in  the  structures  dating  after  the  Gothic  period 
there  is  want  of  sensibility ;  the  art  of  the  Renaissance 
was  not  moulded  here  in  the  moods  of  a  refined  and 
effeminate  patriciate,  such  as  in  Venice  tempered  it  to 
beauty;  but  it  renders  in  marble  the  prepotence  of  a 
commercialized  nobility,  and  makes  good  in  that  form 
the  right  of  the  city  to  be  called  Genoa  the  Proud. 
Perhaps  she  would  not  wish  to  be  called  proud  because 
of  these  palaces  alone.  It  is  imaginable  that  she  would 
like  the  stranger  to  remember  the  magnificence  with 
which  she  rewarded  the  patriotism  of  her  greatest  citi 
zen  after  Columbus  and  Mazzini:  that  mighty  ad 
miral.  Andrea  Doria,  who  freed  this  country  first  from 
the  rule  of  Charles  V.  and  then  from  the  rule  of 
Francis  I. ;  who  swept  the  Barbary  corsairs  from  the 
seas;  who  beat  the  Turks  in  battles  on  ship  and  on 
shore ;  who  took  Corsica  from  the  French  when  he  was 
eighty-eight  years  old ;  who  suffered  from  civil  faction ; 
who  outlived  exile  as  he  had  outlived  war,  and  who  died 
at  the  age  of  ninety-four,  after  he  had  refused  the  sov 
ereignty  of  the  country  he  had  served  so  long ;  who  was 
the  Washington  of  his  clay,  and  was  equally  statesman 

279 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

and  soldier,  and,  above  all,  patriot.  It  is  his  portrait 
that  you  see  in  that  old  palace  (called  the  Palace  of 
the  Prince  because  Charles  V.  had  called  him  Prince) 
overlooking  the  port,  where  he  sits  an  old,  old  man, 
very  weary,  in  the  sole  society  of  his  sarcastic  cat,  as  I 
have  noted  before.  The  cat  seems  to  have  just  passed 
some  ironical  reflection  on  the  vanity  of  human  things 
and  to  be  studying  him  for  the  effect.  Both  appear  in 
different  to  the  spectator,  but  perhaps  they  are  not,  and 
you  must  not  for  all  that  fail  of  a  visit  to  the  Church 
of  San  Matteo,  set  round  with  the  palaces  of  the  Doria 
family  —  the  palace  which  his  grateful  country  gave 
the  Admiral  after  he  refused  to  be  her  master,  and  the 
palaces  of  his  kindred  neighboring  it  round. 

I  do  not  remember  any  equal  space  in  all  Europe 
which,  through  a  very  little  knowledge,  so  takes  the 
heart  as  the  gentle  little  church  founded  by  an  earlier 
Doria,  and,  after  four  hundred  years,  restored  by  a 
later,  and  then  environed  with  the  stately  homes  of  the 
race,  where  they  could  be  domesticated  in  the  honor  and 
reverence  of  their  countrymen  because  of  the  goodness 
and  greatness  of  the  loftiest  of  their  line.  It  is  such 
a  place  as  one  may  revere  and  yet  possess  one's  soul 
in  self-respect,  very  much  as  one  may  revere  Mount 
\7'ernon.  The  church,  as  well  as  the  piazza,  is  full  of 
Dorian  memories,  and  the  cloister  must  be  visited  not 
only  for  its  rather  damp  beauty,  but  for  the  full  mean 
ing  of  the  irony  which  Doria's  cat  in  the  portrait  wish 
ed  to  convey:  against  the  wall  here  are  gathered  the 
fragments  of  the  statue  of  Doria  which,  when  the 
French  Revolution  came  to  Genoa,  the  patriots  threw 
out  of  the  ducal  palace  and  broke  in  the  street  below. 

We  were  some  time  in  finding  our  way  into  the 
magnificent  hall  of  the  Great  Council  where  this  statue 
once  stood,  with  the  statues  of  many  other  Genoese 

280 


BACK    AT    GENOA 

heroes  and  statesmen,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  it  was 
worth  all  our  trouble.  Magnificent  it  certainly  was, 
but  coarsely  magnificent,  like  so  much  elsewhere  in 
Genoa;  but,  if  we  had  been  at  ten  times  the  trouble 
we  were  in  seeing  the  Palace  of  the  Municipality,  I 
should  not  think  it  too  much.  There  in  the  great  hall 
are  the  monuments  of  those  Genoese  notables  whose 
munificence  their  country  wished  to  remember  in  the 
order  of  their  generosity.  I  do  not  remember  just 
what  the  maximum  was,  but  the  Doge  or  other  leading 
citizen  who  gave,  say,  twenty-five  thousand  ducats  to 
the  state  had  a  statue  erected  to  him;  one  who  gave 
fifteen,  a  bust ;  and  one  who  gave  five,  an  honorary  tab 
let.  The  surprising  thing  is  that  nearly  all  the  statues 
and  busts,  whether  good  likenesses  or  not,  are  delight 
ful  art:  it  is  as  if  the  noble  acts  of  the  benefactors  of 
their  country  had  inspired  the  sculptors  to  reproduce 
them  not  only  in  true  character,  but  in  due  dignity. 
To  the  American  who  views  them  and  remembers  that 
we  have  now  so  much  money  that  some  of  us  do  not 
know  what  to  do  with  it,  they  will  suggest  that  our 
millionaires  have  an  unrivalled  opportunity  of  im 
mortality  in  the  same  sort.  There  is  hardly  a  town 
of  ten  thousand  inhabitants  in  the  country  where  there 
are  not  men  who  could  easily  afford  to  give  a  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  or  fifty,  or  twenty  to  their  native  or 
adoptive  place  and  so  enter  upon  a  new  life  in  bronze 
or  marble.  This  would  enrich  us  beyond  the  dreams 
of  avarice  in  a  high-grade  portrait  statuary;  it  would 
give  work  to  hundreds  of  sculptors  who  now  have  little 
or  nothing  to  do,  and  would  revive  or  create  the  supple 
mentary  industries  of  casting  in  metal  or  carving  in 
stone. 

The  time  was  in  Genoa,  it  seems,  as  the  time  is  now 
with  us,  when  a  great  many  people  did  not  know  what 

281 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

to  do  witH  their  money.  There  were  sumptuary  laws 
which  forbade  their  spending  it,  either  they  or  their 
wives  or  daughters,  in  dress ;  apparently  they  could  not 
even  wear  Genoa  velvet,  which  had  to  be  sold  abroad 
for  the  corruption  of  the  outside  world;  and  this  is 
said  to  be  the  reason  why  there  were  so  many  palaces 
built  in  Genoa  in  the  days  of  the  republic.  People 
who  did  not  wish  to  figure  in  that  hall  of  fame  put  their 
surplus  into  the  immense  and  often  ugly  edifices  which 
we  still  see  ministering  to  their  pride  in  the  wide  and 
narrow  streets  of  the  city.  Now  and  then  a  devout 
family  built  or  rebuilt  a  church  and  gave  it  to  the  pub 
lic;  but  by  far  the  greater  number  put  up  palaces, 
where,  after  the  house-warming,  they  dwelt  in  a  cold 
and  economical  seclusion.  Some  of  their  palaces  are 
now  devoted  to  public  uses;  they  are  galleries  of  pict 
ures  and  statues  most  worthy  to  be  seen,  or  they  are 
municipal  offices,  or  museums,  or  schools  of  art  or  sci 
ence;  but  part  are  still  in  the  keeping  of  the  families 
that  contributed  them  to  the  splendor  of  their  city. 
The  streets  in  which  they  stand  are  loud  with  transit 
and  traffic,  but  the  palaces  hold  aloof  from  the  turmoil 
and  lift  their  lofty  heads  to  the  level  of  the  gardens 
behind  them.  Huge,  heavy  they  are,  according  to  the 
local  ideal,  and  always  wanting  the  delicacy  of  Vene 
tian  architecture,  where  something  in  the  native  genius 
tempered  to  gentleness  the  cold  severity  of  Palladio, 
and  where  Sansovino  knew  how  to  bridge  the  gulf  be 
tween  the  Gothic  and  the  Renascent  art  that  would 
have  been  Greek  but  halted  at  being  Roman. 

The  grandeur  of  those  streets  of  palaces  in  Genoa 
cannot  be  denied,  but  perhaps,  if  the  visitor  quite  con 
sulted  his  preference  or  indulged  his  humor,  he  would 
wander  rather  through  the  arcades  of  the  busy  port, 
up  the  chasmal  alleys  of  little  shops  into  the  tiny 

282 


BACK    AT    GENOA 

i 

piazzas,  no  bigger  than  a  good-sized  room,  opening  be 
fore  some  ancient  church  and  packed  with  busy,  noisy 
people.  The  perspective  there  is  often  like  the  per 
spective  in  old  Naples,  but  the  uproar  in  Genoa  does 
not  break  in  music  as  it  does  in  Naples,  and  the  chill 
lingering  in  the  sunless  depths  of  those  chasms  is  the 
cold  of  a  winter  that  begins  earlier  and  a  spring  that 
loiters  later  than  the  genial  seasons  of  the  South. 


EDEN  AFTEK  THE  FALL 

A  FEW  years  ago  an  Englishman  who  had  lived  our 
neighbor  in  the  same  villa  at  San  Remo,  came  and  said 
that  he  was  going  away  because  it  was  so  dull  at  San 
Remo.  He  was  going  with  his  wife  to  Monte  Carlo, 
because  you  could  find  amusement  every  day  in  the 
week  at  the  tables  of  the  different  games  of  chance, 
and  Sundays  there  was  a  very  nice  little  English 
church.  He  did  not  seem  to  think  there  was  anything 
out  of  the  way  in  his  grouping  of  these  advantages, 
but  he  did  not  strongly  urge  them  upon  us,  and  we  re 
stricted  ourselves  in  turn  to  our  tacit  reflections  on 
the  indifference  of  the  English  to  a  point  of  morals  on 
which  the  American  conscience  is  apt  to  suffer  more 
or  less  anguish  if  it  offends.  So  far  as  I  know  they 
do  not  think  it  wrong  to  take  money  won  at  any  game ; 
but  possibly  their  depravity  in  this  matter  rather  com 
forted  us  than  offended.  At  any  rate,  I  am  sure  of  the 
superiority  of  our  own  morals  in  visiting  Monte  Carlo 
after  we  left  Genoa.  If  we  did  not  look  forward  with 
our  Englishman's  complacency  to  the  nice  little  church 
there,  we  certainly  did  not  mean  to  risk  our  money 
at  the  tables  of  Roulette,  nor  yet  at  the  tables  of  Trente 
et  Quarante,  in  the  Casino.  What  we  really  wished  to 
do  was  to  look  on  in  the  spiritual  security  of  saints 
while  the  sinners  of  both  sexes  lost  and  gained  to  the 

284 


EDEN    AFTEK    THE    PALL 

equal  hurt  of  their  souls.  We  perhaps  expected  to  hear 
the  report  of  a  pistol  in  the  gardens  of  the  Casino,  if  we 
did  not  actually  see  the  ruined  gambler  falling  among 
the  flowers,  or  if  not  so  much  as  this,  we  thought  we 
might  witness  his  dramatic  despair  as  the  croupier 
drew  in  the  last  remnant  of  his  fortune  and  mechan 
ically  invited  the  other  Messieurs  and  Mesdames  to 
make  their  game;  secretly,  we  might  even  have  been 
willing  to  see  something  hysterical  on  the  part  of  the 
Mesdames  if  fate  frowned  upon  them,  or  something 
scandalously  exuberant  if  it  smiled.  If  our  motives 
were  not  the  worst,  they  were,  at  any  rate,  not  the  best ; 
I  suppose  they  were  the  usual  human  motives,  and  I 
am  afraid  they  were  mixed. 

We  found  it  rather  long  from  Genoa  to  Monte  Carlo, 
but  this  was  not  so  much  because  of  the  distance  as 
because  of  the  delays  of  our  train,  which,  having  start 
ed  late,  grew  reckless  on  the  way,  and  before  we  reach 
ed  the  Italian  frontier  at  Ventimiglia,  had  lost  all 
shame  and  failed  to  connect  there  with  the  French 
train  for  the  rest  of  our  journey.  So,  instead  of  hav 
ing  barely  time  to  affirm  our  innocence  of  tobacco, 
spirits,  or  perfumes  to  the  customs  officers,  and  to  wash 
down  a  sandwich  with  a  cup  of  coffee  at  the  restaurant, 
we  had  an  hour  and  forty  minutes  at  Ventimiglia, 
which  I  partly  spent  in  vain  attempts  to  buy  the  pov 
erty  of  the  inspector  so  far  as  to  prevail  with  him 
not  to  delay  the  examination  of  our  baggage,  but 
to  proceed  to  it  at  once,  in  order  that  we  might 
have  it  all  off  our  minds,  and  devote  our  long 
leisure  to  the  inquiry  by  what  steps  the  ancient  Li- 
gurian  tribe  of  the  Intemelii  lost  their  name  in  its 
actual  corruption  of  Ventimiglia.  It  is  a  charming  old 
town,  far  more  charming  than  the  stranger  who  never 
has  time  to  walk  into  it  from  the  station  can  imagine, 

285 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

and  there  is  a  palm-bordered  avenue  leading  from  the 
railway  to  the  sea,  with  the  shops  and  cafes  of  Italy 
on  one  side  and  the  shops  and  cafes  of  France  on  the 
other.  So  late  as  six  o'clock  in  the  evening  those  cafes 
and  shops  preserved  a  reciprocal  integrity  which  I 
could  not  praise  too  highly,  but  after  dark  there  must 
be  a  ghostly  interchange  of  forbidden  commodities 
among  them  which  no  force  of  customs  officers  could 
wholly  suppress.  At  any  rate,  I  should  have  liked  to 
see  them  try  it,  though  I  should  not  have  liked  to 
be  kept  in  Ventimiglia  overnight  for  any  less  reason; 
it  seemed  a  lonesome  place,  though  mighty  picturesque, 
with  old  walls,  and  a  magnificent  old  fort  toward  the 
sea,  and  a  fine  bridge  spanning,  though  for  the  mo 
ment  superfluously  spanning,  the  perfectly  dry  bed  of 
a  river. 

I  wished  to  ask  what  the  name  of  the  river  was,  but 
out  of  all  the  files  of  people  coming  and  going  I  chose 
an  aged  man  who  could  not  tell  me ;  he  excused  himself 
with  real  regret  on  the  ground  that  he  was  a  stranger 
in  those  parts.  Then  there  was  nothing  for  me  to  do 
but  go  back  to  the  station  and  renew  my  attempt  on 
the  inspector,  who  still  remained  proof  against  me. 
What  added  to  the  hardship  of  the  situation  was  that  it 
was  Italy  at  one  end  of  the  station  and  France  at 
the  other,  and  in  one  extremity  it  was  an  hour  earlier 
than  it  was  at  the  other,  by  the  time  of  Central  Eu 
rope  at  the  east  and  by  the  time  of  Paris  at  the  west, 
so  that  I  do  not  know  but  we  were  two  hours  and  forty 
minutes  at  Ventimiglia  instead  of  one  hour  and  forty 
minutes.  Of  this  period  little  could  be  employed  at 
tea,  and  we  were  not  otherwise  hungry;  we  could  give 
something  of  our  interminable  leisure  to  counting  our 
baggage  and  suffering  unfounded  alarms  at  failing  to 
make  it  come  out  right,  but  we  could  not  give  much, 


EDEN    AFTER    THE    FALL 

The  weather  had  turned  chilly,  the  long  station  was 
full  of  draughts,  and  the  invalid  of  the  party,  without 
whom  no  American  party  is  perfectly  national,  was 
rapidly  taking  cold.  We  were  quite  incredulous  when 
the  examination  actually  began,  but  at  last  it  really  did, 
and  it  began  with  our  pieces,  with  such  a  show  of  fav 
oring  us  on  the  inspector's  part,  that  when  it  was  over, 
in  about  two  minutes,  one  trunk  serving  as  a  type  of 
the  innocence  of  all,  I  furtively  held  up  a  piece  of 
five  francs  in  recognition  of  his  kindness.  But  he  slow 
ly  shook  his  head,  whether  in  regret  or  whether  in  stern 
refusal  I  shall  never  know.  He  was  an  Italian,  but  in 
the  employment  of  the  French  republic,  and  I  have  not 
been  able  since  to  credit  with  certainty  his  incorrupti 
bility  to  his  native  or  his  adoptive  country;  I  might 
easily  be  mistaken  in  deciding  either  way. 

What  I  am  certain  of,  and  certainly  sorry  for,  is 
the  superiority  of  the  French  company's  railway  car 
riage,  from  Yentimiglia  on,  to  the  Italian  carriage 
which  had  brought  us  so  far,  and  it  is  still  with  un 
willingness  that  I  own  the  corporation's  greater  care 
for  our  comfort.  If  we  had  been  in  the  paternal  care 
of  the  administration  of  the  gambling  -  house  at 
Monte  Carlo,  we  could  not  have  been  more  tenderly 
or  cleanly  cushioned  about,  or  borne  away  on  softer 
springs ;  and  very  possibly  a  measure  of  wickedness  in 
the  means  is  a  condition  of  comfort  in  the  end  to  which 
we  are  so  tempted  to  abandon  ourselves  in  a  world 
which  is  not  yet  so  sternly  collectivist  as  I  could  wish. 
It  was  not  quite  dark  when  we  arrived  at  Monte 
Carlo  and  began  to  experience,  in  the  beautiful  keep 
ing  of  the  place,  how  admirably  a  gambling-house  can 
manage  the  affairs  of  a  principality  when  it  pays  all 
the  taxes.  There  were  many  two-horse  landaus  wait 
ing  our  pleasure  outside  the  station,  and  the  horses 

287 


BOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

were  all  so  robust  and  handsome  that  we  were  not 
put  to  our  usual  painful  endeavor  in  seeking  the  best 
and  getting  the  worst.  All  those  stately  equipages  were 
good,  and  the  one  that  fell  to  us  mounted  the  hill  to 
our  hotel  by  a  grade  so  insinuating  that  the  balkiest 
horse  in  Frascati  could  hardly  have  suspected  it. 

In  our  easy  ascent  we  were  aware  of  the  gray- 
and  -  blond  houses  behind  their  walls  among  their 
groves  and  gardens,  among  flowers  and  blossoms; 
of  the  varying  inclines  and  levels  from  which  some 
lovely  difference  of  prospect  appeared  at  every  step; 
of  the  admirably  tended  roadways,  and  the  walks  that 
followed  them  up  hill  and  down,  and  crossed  to  little 
parks,  or  led  to  streets  brilliant  with  shops  and  hotels, 
clustering  about  the  great  gambling-house,  the  centre 
of  the  common  prosperity  and  animation.  The  air  had 
softened  with  the  setting  sun,  and  the  weather  which 
had  at  Leghorn  and  Genoa  delayed  through  two  weeks 
of  rain  and  cold,  seemed  to  confess  the  control  of  the 
Casino  administration,  as  everything  else  does  at  Monte 
Carlo,  and  promised  an  amiability  to  which  we  eargerly 
trusted. 

It  was  of  course  warmer  out-doors  than  in-doors,  and 
while  the  fire  was  kindling  on  our  hearth  we  gave  the 
quarter  hour  before  dinner  to  looking  over  our  garden- 
wall  into  the  comely  town  in  the  valley  below,  and  to 
the  palace  and  capital  of  the  Prince  of  Monaco  on  the 
heights  beyond.  Nothing  by  day  or  by  night  could  be 
more  exquisite  than  the  little  harbor,  a  perfect  horse 
shoe  in  shape,  and  now,  at  our  first  sight  of  it,  set 
round  with  electric  lights,  like  diamonds  in  the  scarf- 
pin  of  some  sporty  Titan,  or  perhaps  of  Hercules  Mon- 
oscus  himself,  who  is  said  to  have  founded  Moriaco.  In 
the  morning  we  saw  that  the  waters  arranged  themselves 
in  the  rainbow  colors  of  such  a  scarf  round  the  shores, 

288 


EDEN    AFTER    THE    FALL 

and  that  there  were  only  pleasure-craft  moored  in  them : 
the  yacht  of  the  Prince  of  Monaco  and  the  yacht  of 
some  American  Prince,  whose  title  I  did  not  ascertain, 
but  whose  flag  was  unmistakable.  There  must  have 
been  other  yachts,  but  I  do  not  remember  them,  and 
possibly  there  were  some  workaday  craft,  of  which  I 
do  not  now  recall  the  impression;  but  I  am  certain  of 
the  festive  air  of  disoccupation  pervading  the  port 
from  the  adjacent  towns,  both  Monte  Carlo  and  Mon 
aco,  which  its  wicked  suburb  has  cleansed  in  corrupt 
ing,  and  rendered  attractive  by  the  example  of  its  ele 
gant  leisure.  There  remains  from  both  places,  and 
from  Condamine  in  the  plain  between  them  the  sense 
of  a  perpetual  round  of  holidays.  There  seemed  to  be 
no  more  creative  business  in  one  place  than  another, 
but  I  do  not  say  there  is  none;  there  is  certainly  a 
polite  distillery  of  perfumes  and  liqueurs  in  Conda 
mine,  but  what  one  sees  is  the  commerce  of  the  shops, 
and  the  building  up  of  more  and  more  villas  and  hotels, 
on  every  shelf  and  ledge,  to  harden  and  whiten  in  the 
sun,  and  let  their  gardens  hang  over  the  verges  of  the 
cliffs.  On  the  northeast,  the  mountains  rise  into  mag 
nificent  steeps  whose  names  would  say  nothing  to  the 
reader,  except  that  of  Turbia,  which  he  will  recall  as 
the  classic  Tropa?a  of  Augustus,  who  marked  there  the 
bounds  between  Italy  and  Gaul.  But  we  were  as  yet 
in  no  mood  to  climb  this  height,  even  with  the  help 
of  a  funicular  railway,  and  I  made  my  explorations 
at  such  convenient  elevations  as  I  could  reach  on  foot, 
or  by  the  help  of  one  of  those  luxurious  landaus  pe 
culiar  to  Monte  Carlo. 

One  such  point  was  undoubtedly  the  head 
land  of  Monaco,  where  the  Greeks  of  Marseilles,  long 
enough  before  Augustus,  built  a  temple  to  Hercules 

Monoecus.      The  Grimaldi   family  which  gave  Genoa 
19  289 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

many  doges,  came  early  into  the  sovereignty  of  Mon 
aco,  by  the  hook  or  crook  those  days,  but  whether  it 
was  they  who  fostered  its  piracy  in  the  fourteenth  cen 
tury,  does  not  distinctly  appear,  though  it  seems  cer 
tain  that  one  of  the  Grimaldi  princes  served  against 
the  English  under  Philip  of  Valois,  and  was  wounded 
at  Crecy.  In  1524  a  successor  went  over  to  the  empire 
under  Charles  V.  Still  later  the  principality  returned 
to  the  sovereignty  of  France,  and  in  1793  the  Trench 
republicans  frankly  annexed  it,  but  it  was  given  back 
to  the  Grimaldi  in  1814. 

The  Grimaldi  on  the  whole  were  a  baddish  line  of 
potentates,  and  only  lacked  largeness  of  scene  to  have 
left  the  memory  of  world-tragedies.  They  murdered 
one  another,  at  least  in  two  cases ;  in  another,  the  peo 
ple  killed  their  ruler  by  publicly  drowning  him  in 
the  sea  for  insulting  their  women ;  the  princes  were  the 
protectors  of  piracy,  and  in  the  very  late  times  follow 
ing  their  restoration  by  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  the 
reigning  prince  confiscated  the  property  of  the  churches 
for  his  own  behoof,  and  took  into  his  hands  the  whole 
trade  of  the  principality.  He  alone  bought  and  ground 
the  grain,  and  baked  the  bread,  which  he  sold  to  his 
people  at  an  extortionate  price;  he  bought  damaged 
flour  in  Genoa  and  fed  it  to  his  subjects  at  the  same 
rate  as  good.  When  they  murmured  and  threatened 
rebellion,  he  threatened  in  turn  that  he  would  rule 
them  with  a  rod  of  iron,  as  if  their  actual  conditions 
were  not  bad  enough.  Some  of  his  oppressions  were 
of  a  fantasticality  bordering  on  comic  opera:  travel 
lers  had  to  give  up  their  provisions  at  the  frontier  and 
eat  the  official  bread  of  Monaco ;  ships  entering  the  port 
were  confiscated  if  they  had  brought  more  loaves  than 
sufficed  them  for  their  voyage  thither;  no  man  might 
cut  his  own  wood  without  leave  of  the  police,  or 

290 


EDEN    AFTER    THE    FALL 

prune  his  trees,  or  till  his  land,  or  irrigate  it;  the 
birth  and  death  of  every  animal  must  be  publicly  reg 
istered,  with  the  payment  of  a  given  tax,  and  nobody 
could  go  out  after  ten  at  night  without  carrying  a 
taxed  lantern.  When  Nice  was  annexed  to  France  in 
1860  Monaco  passed  under  French  protection  again, 
and  now  it  is  subject  to  conscription  like  the  rest  of 
France.  Ten  years  after  the  beginning  of  this  new 
order  of  things  the  great  M.  Blanc  was  expelled  from 
Hombourg,  and  the  Prince  of  Monaco  rented  to  him  the 
gambling  privilege  of  Monte  Carlo. 

Then  the  modern  splendor  of  the  place  began.  The 
entire  population  of  the  three  towns,  Monaco,  Monte 
Carlo,  and  Condamine,  is  not  above  fifteen  thousand, 
and  apparently  the  greater  part  of  the  inhabitants  de 
pend  Upon  the  gay  industry  of  the  Casino  for  their 
livelihood.  I  should  say  that  the  most  of  the  houses 
in  Monte  Carlo  were  hotels,  or  pensions,  or  furnished 
villas,  or  furnished  apartments,  and  if  one  could  be 
content  to  live  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  Casino,  which 
is  not  meteorologically  lurid,  I  do  not  know  where 
one  could  live  in  greater  comfort.  It  is  said  that  ev 
erything  is  rather  dearer  than  in  Nice,  for  instance, 
but  such  things  as  I  wanted  to  buy  I  did  not  find  very 
dear.  The  rates  at  the  most  expensive  hotels  did  not 
seem  exhorbitant  when  reduced  to  dollars,  and  if  you 
went  a  little  way  from  the  Casino  the  hotels  were  very 
reasonable,  so  that  you  could  spend  a  great  deal  of 
money  at  the  tables  which  in  America  you  would  spend 
in  board  and  lodging.  I  fancy  that  a  villa  could  be 
got  there  very  reasonably,  and  as  the  morals  of  all  the 
inhabitants  are  scrupulously  cared  for  by  the  admin 
istration  of  the  Casino,  and  no  one  living  in  the  prin 
cipality  is  allowed  to  frequent  the  gaming-tables,  it  is 

probable  that  domestic  service  is  good  and  cheap.     If 

291 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

I  may  speak  from  our  experience  at  our  very  simple 
little  hotel,  it  is  admirable,  one  waiter  sufficing  for 
ten  or  twelve  guests,  with  leisure  for  much  friendly 
conversation  in  the  office,  between  the  breakfasts  served 
in  our  rooms  and  the  excellent  dinners  at  the  small 
tables  in  the  salon.  If  you  liked,  he  would  speak 
French  or  Italian,  though  he  spoke  English  as  well  as 
any  one,  and  he  was  of  that  excellent  Piedmontese  race 
which  has  been  the  saving  salt  of  the  whole  peninsula. 
As  for  the  food,  it  was  far  beyond  that  of  our  cold- 
storage,  and  it  must  have  been  cheap,  since  it  was  pro 
vided  for  us  at  the  rate  we  paid. 

The  cost  of  dress  varies,  according  to  the  taste  of  and 
the  purse,  everywhere.  White  serge  seemed  the  fav 
orite  wear  of  most  of  the  ladies  one  saw  in  the  street 
at  Monte  Carlo,  especially  in  the  region  of  the  Casino. 
This  may  have  expressed  an  inner  condition,  or  it  may 
have  been  a  sympathetic  response  to  the  advances  of 
the  flowers  in  the  pretty  beds  and  parterres  so  fanci 
fully  designed  by  the  gardeners  of  the  administration, 
or  it  may  have  been  a  token  of  the  helpless  submission 
to  which  the  windows  of  the  milliners  and  modistes 
reduced  all  comers  of  the  dressful  sex.  Many  of  the 
men  with  the  women,  or  without  them,  were  also  in 
white  serge,  but  they  seemed  more  variably  attired; 
there  was  a  prevailing  suggestion  of  yachting  or  au- 
tomobiling  in  their  dress,  though  doubtless  most  of 
them  had  not  sailed  or  motored  to  the  spot.  Some  few, 
say  four  or  five,  may  have  motored  away  from  it,  for 
in  the  centre  of  the  charming  square  before  the  Casino 
there  was  an  automobile  of  some  newest  type  being 
raffled  for  in  the  interest  of  that  chiefest  of  the  Chris 
tian  virtues  which  makes  its  most  successful  appeals 
in  the  vicinity  of  games  of  chance.  Some  one  must 
have  won  the  machine  and  carried  a  party  of  his  friends 

292 


EDEN    AFTEK    THE    FALL 

away,  and  triumphantly  turned  turtle  with  it  over  the 
first  of  the  precipices  which  abound  at  Monte  Carlo. 
More  than  the  tables  within  this  opportunity  of  fortune 
tempted  me,  and  it  was  only  by  the  repeated  recurrence 
to  my  principles  that  I  was  able  to  get  away  alive. 
In  spite  of  myself,  I  did  not  get  away  without,  how 
ever  guiltlessly,  having  yielded  to  the  spirit  of  the 
place.  It  was  at  the  Administrational  Art  Exhibition, 
where  there  were  really  some  good  pictures,  and  where, 
on  my  entering,  I  was  given  a  small  brass  disk.  On 
going  out  I  attempted  to  restore  this  to  the  door-keeper, 
but  he  went  back  with  me  to  a  certain  piece  of  mechan 
ism,  where  he  instructed  me  to  put  the  disk  into  a  slot. 
Then  the  disk  ran  its  course,  and  a  small  brass  ball 
came  out  at  the  bottom.  The  door-keeper  opened  this, 
and  showed  me  that  it  was  empty;  but  he  gave  me  to 
understand  that  it  might  have  been  full  of  diamonds, 
or  rubies,  or  seed-pearls,  which  might  have  implanted 
in  me  a  lust  of  gambling  I  should  never  have  overcome. 
Monte  Carlo  was  in  every  way  tempting.  A  vast  ob 
long,  brilliant  with  flowers  in  artistic  patterns,  stretched 
upward  from  the  Casino,  and  there  was  an  agreeable 
park  where  one  might  sit.  On  every  other  side  there 
were  costly  hotels  and  costly  restaurants,  including  that 
of  the  unexampled,  the  insurpassable  Ciro,  where  one 
saw  people  eating  and  drinking  at  the  windows  when 
ever  one  passed,  by  day  or  night.  Beyond  the  Casino 
seaward  were  the  beautiful  terraces,  planted  with  palms 
and  other  tropic  growths,  where  people  might  come  out 
and  kill  themselves  when  they  had  nothing  left  to  lose 
but  their  lives;  and  against  the  dark  green  of  their 
fronds  the  temple  of  fortune  lifted  a  frosted-cake-like 
front  of  long  extent.  I  do  not  know  just  what  type  of 
architecture  it  is  of,  but  it  distinctly  suggests  the  art  of 
the  pastry  cook  when  he  has  triumphed  in  some  edifice 

293 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

crowning  the  centre  of  the  table  at  a  great  public  dinner. 
What  mars  the  pleasing  effect  most  is  a  detail  which 
enforces  this  suggestion,  for  the  region  of  the  Casino 
is  thickly  frequented  by  a  species  of  black  doves,  and 
when  these  gather  in  close  lines  of  black  dots  along  the 
eaves,  they  have  exactly  the  effect  of  flies  clustering 
on  the  sugary  surfaces  of  the  cake.  At  intervals  are 
bronze  statues  of  what  seem  a  sort  of  adolescent  cher 
ubs,  but  which  have,  I  do  not  know  why,  a  peculiarly 
devilish  appearance.  ~No  doubt  they  are  harmless 
enough ;  but  certainly  they  do  nothing  to  keep  the  flies 
off  the  cake. 

In  fine,  as  an  edifice  the  Casino  disappoints,  and  if 
one  is  not  pressingly  curious  about  the  interior,  one 
rather  lingers  on  the  terrace  overlooking  the  sea,  and 
the  lines  of  the  railroad  following  the  shore,  and  the 
panorama  of  the  several  towns.  It  is  charming  to  sit 
there,  and  if  it  is  in  the  afternoon,  you  may  see  an 
artist  there  painting  water-colors  of  the  scenery.  Even 
if  he  were  not  painting,  you  could  not  help  knowing 
him  for  an  artist,  because  he  wears  a  black  velvet 
jacket  and  knickerbockers,  and  a  soft  slouch  hat,  and 
has  a  curled  black  mustache  and  pointed  beard;  there 
is  no  mistaking  him;  and  at  a  given  moment,  after 
he  has  been  working  long  enough,  he  puts  above  his 
sketch  the  sign,  "For  Sale,"  as  artists  always  do,  and 
then,  if  you  want  a  masterpiece,  you  go  down  a  few 
steps  from  where  you  are  sitting  and  buy  it.  But  I 
never  did  that  any  more  than  I  took  tickets  for  the 
charity  automobile,  though  there  is  no  telling  what  I 
might  not  have  done  if  I  had  broken  the  bank  when 
at  last  I  went  into  the  Casino. 

It  seems  to  open  about  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morn 
ing,  for  gamblers  are  hard-working,  impatient  people, 
and  do  not  want  to  lose  time.  A  broad  stretch  of  red 

294 


EDEN    AFTEK    THE    FALL 

carpet  is  laid  down  the  steps  from  the  portal  and  they 
begin  to  go  in  at  once,  and  people  keep  going  in  until  I 
know  not  what  hour  at  night.  But  I  think  mid-after 
noon  is  the  best  hour  to  see  them,  and  it  is  then  that  I 
will  invite  the  reader  to  accompany  me,  instructing 
him  to  turn  to  the  left  on  entering,  and  get  his  gratis 
billet  of  admission  to  the  rooms  from  the  polite  offi 
cials  there  in  charge,  who  will  ask  for  his  card,  and 
inquire  his  country  and  city,  but  will  not  insist  upon 
his  street  and  his  number  in  it.  This  form  is  ap 
parently  to  make  sure  that  you  are  not  a  resident  of 
the  principality,  and  that  if  you  suffer  in  your  morals 
from  your  visit  to  the  Casino  you  shall  not  be  a  source 
of  local  corruption  thereafter.  They  bow  you  away, 
first  audibly  pronouncing  your  name  with  polyglottic 
accuracy,  and  then  you  are  free  to  wander  where  you 
like.  But  probably  you  will  want  to  go  at  once  from 
the  large,  nobly  colonnaded  reception-hall  or  atrium, 
into  that  series  of  salons  where  wickeder  visitors  than 
yourself  are  already  closely  seated  at  the  oblong  tables, 
and  standing  one  or  two  deep  round  them.  The  salons 
of  the  series  are  fo\tr,  and  the  tables  in  each  are  from 
two  to  five,  according  to  the  demands  of  the  season; 
some  are  Trente  et  Quarante-tables,  and  some,  by  far 
the  greater  number,  are  Roulette  -  tables.  Roulette 
seems  the  simpler  game,  and  the  more  popular ;  I  form 
ed  the  notion  that  there  was  a  sort  of  aristocratic  qual 
ity  in  Trente  et  Quarante,  and  that  the  players  of  that 
game  were  of  higher  rank  and  longer  purse,  but  I  can 
allege  no  reason  justifying  my  notion.  All  that  I  can 
say  is  that  the  tables  devoted  to  it  commanded  the 
seaward  views,  and  the  tops  of  the  gardens  where  the 
players  withdrew  when  they  wished  to  commit  suicide. 
The  rooms  are  decorated  by  several  French  painters  of 
note,  and  the  whole  interior  is  designed  by  the  famous 

295 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

architect  Gamier,  to  as  little  effect  of  beauty  as  could 
well  be.  It  is  as  if  these  French  artists  had  worked 
in  the  German  taste,  rather  than  their  own,  and  in 
any  case  they  have  achieved  in  their  several  allegories 
and  impersonations  something  uniformly  heavy  and 
dull.  One  might  fancy  that  the  mood  of  the  players  at 
the  tables  had  imparted  itself  to  the  figures  in  the 
panels,  but  very  likely  this  is  not  so,  for  the  players 
had  apparently  parted  with  none  of  their  unpleasing 
dulness.  They  were  in  about  equal  number  men  and 
women,  and  they  partook  equally  of  a  look  of  hard 
repression.  The  repression  may  not  have  been  wholly 
from  within;  a  little  away  from  each  table  hovered, 
with  an  air  of  detachment,  certain  plain  and  quiet 
men,  who,  for  all  their  apparent  inattention,  may  have 
been  agents  of  the  Administration  vigilant  to  subdue 
the  slightest  show  of  drama  in  the  players.  I  myself 
saw  no  drama,  unless  I  may  call  so  the  attitude  of  a 
certain  tall,  handsome  young  man,  who  stood  at  the 
corner  of  one  of  the  tables,  and,  with  nervously  working 
jaws,  staked  his  money  at  each  invitation  of  the  crou 
piers.  I  did  not  know  whether  he  won  or  lost,  and 
I  could  not  decide  from  their  faces  which  of  the  other 
men  or  women  were  winning  or  losing.  I  had  sup 
posed  that  I  might  see  distinguished  faces,  distinguish 
ed  figures,  but  I  saw  none.  The  players  were  of  the 
average  of  the  spectators  in  dress  and  carriage,  but 
in  the  heavy  atmosphere  of  the  rooms,  which  was  very 
hot  and  very  bad,  they  all  alike  looked  dull.  At  a 
psychological  moment  it  suddenly  came  to  me  in  their 
presence,  that  if  there  was  such  a  place  as  hell,  it 
must  be  very  dull,  like  that,  and  that  the  finest  misery 
of  perdition  must  be  the  stupid  dulness  of  it.  For 
some  unascertained  reason,  but  probably  from  a  mis 
taken  purpose  of  ornament,  there  hung  over  the  centre 

296 


EDEN    AFTEK    THE    FALL 

of  each  table,  almost  down  to  the  level  of  the  players' 
heads,  lengths  of  large-linked  chains,  and  it  was  imag 
inable,  though  not  very  probable,  that  if  any  of  the 
lost  souls  rose  violently  up,  or  made  an  unseemly  out 
cry,  or  other  rebellious  demonstration,  those  plain,  quiet 
men,  the  agents  of  the  Administration,  would  fling 
themselves  upon  him  or  her,  and  bind  them  with  those 
chains,  and  cast  them  into  such  outer  darkness  as  could 
be  symbolized  by  the  shade  of  the  terrace  trees.  The 
thing  was  improbable,  as  I  say,  but  not  impossible,  if 
there  is  truth  in  Swedenborg's  relation  that  the  hells 
are  vigilantly  policed,  and  from  time  to  time  put  in 
order  by  angels  detailed  for  that  office.  To  be  sure 
the  plain,  quiet  men  did  not  look  like  angels,  and  the 
Administration  of  which  they  were  agents,  could  not, 
except  in  its  love  of  order,  be  likened  to  any  celestial 
authority. 

Commonly  in  the  afternoon  there  is  music  in  the 
great  atrium  from  which  the  gambling-rooms  open,  and 
then  there  is  a  pleasant  movement  of  people  up  and 
down.  They  are  kept  in  motion  perhaps  by  their  pref 
erence,  somewhat,  but  also  largely  by  the  want  of  seats. 
If  you  can  secure  one  of  these  you  may  amuse  yourself 
very  well  by  looking  on  at  the  fashion  and  beauty  of 
those  who  have  not  secured  any.  Here  you  will  see 
much  more  distinction  than  in  the  gambling-rooms ;  the 
air  is  better,  and  if  you  choose  to  fancy  this  the  limbo 
of  that  inferno,  it  will  not  be  by  a  violent  strain.  In 
the  crowd  will  be  many  pretty  young  girls,  in  proper 
chaperonage,  and  dressed  in  the  latest  effects  of  Paris ; 
if  they  happen  to  be  wearing  the  mob-cap  hats  of  the 
moment  it  is  your  greater  gain;  they  could  not  be  so 
charming  in  anything  else,  or  look  more  innocent,  or 
more  consciously  innocent.  You  could  only  hope,  how 
ever,  such  were  the  malign  associations  of  the  place, 

297 


KOMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

that  their  chaperons  would  not  neglect  them  for  the 
gaming-tables  beyond,  but  you  could  not  be  sure,  if  the 
chaperons  were  all  like  that  old  English  lady  one  even 
ing  at  the  opera  in  the  Casino,  who  came  in  charge  of 
her  niece,  or  possibly  some  friend's  daughter.  She 
remained  dutifully  enough  beside  the  girl  through  the 
first  act  of  the  stupid  musical  comedy,  and  even  through 
the  ensuing  ballet,  and  when  a  flaunting  female,  in  a 
hat  of  cart-wheel  circumference,  came  in  and  shut 
out  the  whole  stage  from  the  hapless  stranger  behind, 
this  good  old  lady  authorized  her  charge  to  ask  him  to 
take  the  seat  next  them  where  he  could  see  something 
of  the  action  if  he  wished.  But  at  the  end  of  the  ballet, 
she  rose,  and  bidding  the  girl  wait  her  return,  she  van 
ished  in  the  direction  of  the  gaming-rooms.  She  may 
merely  have  gone  to  look  on  at  a  spectacle  which,  dul- 
ness  for  dulness,  was  no  worse  than  that  of  the  musical 
comedy,  and  I  have  no  proof  that  she  risked  her  money 
there.  The  girl  sat  through  the  next  act,  and  then  in  a 
sudden  fine  alarm,  like  that  of  a  bird  which,  from  no 
visible  cause,  starts  from  its  perch,  she  took  flight,  and 
I  hope  she  found  her  aunt,  or  her  mother's  friend, 
quietly  sleeping  on  one  of  those  seats  in  the  atrium.  It 
Was  one  of  those  tacit,  eventless  dramas  which  in  travel 
are  always  offering  themselves  to  your  Witness.  They 
begin  in  silence,  and  go  quietly  on  to  their  unfinish,  and 
leave  you  steeped  in  an  interest  which  is  life-long, 
whereas  a  story  whose  end  you  know  soon  perishes  from 
your  mind.  Art  has  not  yet  learned  the  supreme  les 
son  of  life,  which  is  never  a  tale  that  is  told  within  the 
knowledge  of  the  living. 

Nowhere,  I  think,  is  the  "  sweet  security  of  streets  " 
felt  more  than  in  Monte  Carlo.  Whether  the  control 
of  that  good  Administration  of  the  Casino  reaches  to 
the  policing  of  the  place  in  other  respects  or  not,  I 

298 


EDEN    AFTER    THE    FALL 

cannot  say,  but  one  walks  home  at  night  from  the  thea 
tre  of  the  Casino  with  the  same  sense  of  safety  that 
one  enjoys  under  that  paternal  roof.  At  eleven  o'clock 
all  Monte  Carlo  sleeps  the  sleep  of  the  innocent  and 
the  just  in  the  dwellings  of  the  citizens  and  permanent 
residents ;  though  it  cannot  be  denied  that  there  appear 
to  be  late  suppers  in  the  hotels  and  restaurants  sur 
rounding  the  Casino,  which  the  iniquitous  may  be  giv 
ing  to  the  guilty.  Away  from  the  flare  of  their  bold 
lights  the  town  reposes  in  a  demi-dark,  and  presents 
to  the  more  strenuous  fancy  the  effect  of  a  mezzotint 
study  of  itself;  by  day  it  is  a  group  of  wash-drawings 
near  to,  and  farther  off,  of  water-colors,  very  richly 
and  broadly  treated.  I  could  not  insist  too  much  upon 
this  notion  with  the  reader  who  has  never  been  there, 
or  has  not  received  picture  postal-cards  from  sojourn 
ing  correspondents.  These  would  afford  him  a  portrait 
of  the  chief  features  and  characteristics  of  the  place  not 
too  highly  flattered,  for  in  fact  it  would  be  impossible 
for  even  a  picture  postal-card  to  exaggerate  its  beauty. 
They  will  besides  convey  one  of  the  few  convincing 
proofs  that  in  spite  of  the  Blanc  Casino  and  the  French 
Republic  the  Prince  of  Monaco  is  still  a  reigning  sov 
ereign,  for  the  postage-stamps  bear  the  tastefully  print 
ed  head  of  that  potentate.  If  the  visitor  requires  other 
proofs  he  may  take  a  landau  at  the  station  in  Monaco, 
and  drive  up  over  the  heights  of  the  capital  into  the 
piazza  before  the  prince's  palace.  When  the  prince  is 
not  at  home  he  can  readily  get  leave  to  visit  the  palace 
for  twenty  minutes,  but  on  my  unlucky  day  the  prince 
was  doubly  at  home,  for  he  was  sick  as  well  as  in  resi 
dence.  I  satisfied  myself  as.  well  as  I  could,  and  I  am 
very  easy  to  satisfy,  with  my  drive  through  the  pleas 
ant  town,  which  is  entirely  Italian  in  effect,  with  its 
people  standing  about  or  looking  out  of  their  windows 

299 


ROMAN    HOLIDAYS    AND    OTHERS 

in  their  Sunday  leisure,  and  quite  Roman  in  the  clean 
liness  of  its  streets.  I  took  due  pleasure  in  the  un 
finished  exterior  of  the  Oceanographic  Museum  and 
the  newly  finished  interior  of  the  Monaco  Cathedral. 
The  cathedral,  which  is  so  new  as  to  make  one  rejoice 
that  most  other  cathedrals  are  old,  is  of  a  glaring  fresh 
ness,  but  is  very  handsome;  somehow  in  spite  of  its 
newness  it  contains  the  tombs  of  the  reigning  family, 
and  perhaps  it  has  only  been  newly  done  over.  The 
museum  which  is  ultimately  to  be  the  greatest  of  its 
kind  in  the  world,  already  contains  somewhere  in  its 
raw  inaccessible  recesses  the  collections  made  by  Prince 
Albert  in  his  many  cruises,  and  is  of  a  palatiality  wor 
thy  of  a  sovereign  with  a  tenant  so  generous  and  prompt 
in  its  rent  as  the  Administration  of  the  Casino  of  Monte 
Carlo. 

This  fact,  namely,  that  the  princely  grandeur  and 
splendor  of  Monaco  all  came  out  of  the  gaming-tables, 
was  something  that  the  driver  of  my  landau  made  me 
observe,  when  our  intimacy  had  mounted  with  our 
road,  and  we  paused  for  the  magnificent  view  of  the  sea 
from  the  headland  near  the  museum.  He  was  other 
wise  a  shrewd  and  conversible  Piedmontese  who  did  not 
make  me  pay  much  above  the  tariff,  and  who  had  pity 
on  my  poor  French  after  awhile,  and  consented  to 
speak  Italian  with  me.  In  the  sort  of  French  glare 
over  the  whole  local  civilization  of  the  principality, 
everybody  will  wish  to  seem  French,  but  after  you 
break  through  the  surface,  the  natives  will  be  as  com 
fortably  and  endearingly  Italian  as  anybody  in  the 
peninsula.  Among  themselves  they  speak  a  Ligurian 
patois,  but  with  the  stranger  they  will  use  an  Italian 
easily  much  better  than  his,  and  also  much  better 
than  their  own  French.  I  think  they  prefer  you  in 
their  racial  parlance  after  you  have  shown  some  knowl- 

300 


THE    CASINO,    MONTE    CARLO 


EDEN    AFTEK    THE    FALL 

edge  of  it,  and  two  kind  women  of  whom  I  asked  my 
way  in  Monte  Carlo,  one  day  when  I  was  trying  for 
the  station  of  the  funicular  to  Turbia,  grew  more  vol 
ubly  kind  when  I  asked  it  in  such  Tuscan  as  I  could 
command.  That  station  is  really  not  hard  to  find  when 
once  you  know  where  it  is,  and  at  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  I  was  mounting  the  precipitous  incline  of 
the  alp  on  whose  summit  Augustus  divided  Italy  from 
Gaul,  and  left  the  stupendous  trophy  which  one  sees 
there  in  ruins  to-day. 

I  should  like  to  render  the  sense  of  my  upward  prog 
ress  dramatic  by  pretending  that  we  mounted  from  a 
zone  of  flowers  at  Monte  Carlo  into  regions  where  only 
the  hardiest  blossoms  greeted  us,  but  what  I  really 
noticed  was  that  by-and-by  the  little  patches  of  vine 
yard  seemed  to  grow  less  and  the  olive-trees  scraggier. 
Perhaps  even  this  was  partly  fancy;  as  for  the  flowers, 
I  cannot  bring  myself  to  partake  of  their  deceit;  for 
they  are  the  most  shameless  fakers,  as  regards  climate, 
in  nature.  It  is,  for  instance,  perfectly  true  that  they 
are  in  bloom  along  the  Riviera  all  winter  long,  but  this 
does  not  prove  that  the  winter  of  the  Riviera  is  always 
warm.  It  merely  proves  that  flowers  can  stand  a  de 
gree  of  cold  that  nips  the  nose  bent  to  hale  their  per 
fume,  and  brings  tears  into  the  eyes  dwelling  in  rapt 
ure  on  their  loveliness.  They  are  like  women;  they 
look  so  fragile  and  delicate  that  you  think  they  cannot 
stand  anything,  but  they  can  stand  pretty  much  ev 
erything,  or  at  least  everything  they  wish  to.  Through 
out  that  week  at  Monte  Carlo,  while  we  cowered  round 
our  fires  or  went  out  into  a  frigid  sunshine,  the  flowers 
smiled  from  every  garden-ground  in  a  gayety  emulous 
of  that  of  their  sisters  passing  in  white  serge.  So 
probably  I  gave  less  attention  to  the  details  of  the 
scenery  through  which  my  funicular  was  passing  than 

301 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS  AND  OTHERS 

to  the  stupendous  prospects  of  sea  and  shore  which  it 
varyingly  commanded.  If  words  could  paint  these  I 
should  not  spare  the  words,  but  when  I  recall  them, 
my  richest  treasure  of  adjectives  seems  a  beggarly  ar 
ray  of  color  tubes,  flattened  and  twisted  past  all  col- 
lapsibility.  Nothing  less  than  an  old-fashioned  pano 
ramic  show  would  impart  any  notion  of  it,  and  even 
that  must  fail  where  it  should  most  abound,  namely,  in 
the  delicacy  of  that  ineffable  majesty. 

We  climbed  and  climbed,  with  many  a  muted  hope 
and  many  a  muted  fear  of  the  mechanism  which  carried 
us  so  safely,  and  then  we  ran  across  a  stretch  of  compar 
ative  level  and  reached  the  last  station,  under  the  cliff 
on  which  the  local  hotel  stood,  with  the  mighty  ruin 
behind  it.  Our  passengers  flocked  up  to  the  terrace  of 
the  hotel,  much  shoved  and  shouldered  by  automobiles 
bearing  the  company  which  seems  proper  to  those 
vehicles,  and  dispersed  themselves  at  the  many  little 
tables  set  about  for  tea,  and  the  glory  of  the  matchless 
outlook.  While  one  could  yet  have  the  ruin  mostly  to 
one's  self,  it  seemed  the  most  favorable  moment  to 
visit  the  crumbling  walls  and  broken  tower,  whose 
fragments  strewed  the  slopes  around.  The  tower  was 
of  Augustus,  and  the  fortress  into  which  it  was  turned 
in  the  Middle  Ages  was  of  unknown  authority,  but 
the  ruin  was  the  work  of  Marshal  Villars,  Who  blew 
up  both  trophy  and  stronghold  sometime  in  the  French 
king's  wars  with  the  imperialists  in  the  first  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  The  destruction  was  incom 
plete,  though  probably  sufficient  fof  the  purpose,  but 
as  a  ruin,  nothing  could  be  more  admirable.  There 
seems  to  be  at  present  something  like  a  restoration 
going  on ;  it  has  not  gone  very  far,  however ;  it  has  de 
veloped  some  fragments  of  majestic  pillars,  and  some 
breadths  of  Roman  brick-work ;  a  few  spaces  about  the 

302 


EDEN    AFTER    THE    FALL 

base  of  the  tower  are  cleared;  but  the  rehabilitation 
will  probably  never  proceed  to  such  an  extreme  that 
you  may  not  sit  down  on  some  carven  remnant  of  the 
past,  and  closing  your  eyes  to  the  surrounding  glory 
of  alp  and  sea  find  yourself  again  on  the  Palatine  or 
amid  the  memorials  of  the  Forum. 


THE    END 


